3 research outputs found
Garbage collection in distributed systems
PhD ThesisThe provision of system-wide heap storage has a number of advantages.
However, when the technique is applied to distributed systems
automatically recovering inaccessible variables becomes a serious problem.
This thesis presents a survey of such garbage collection techniques but
finds that no existing algorithm is entirely suitable. A new, general
purpose algorithm is developed and presented which allows individual
systems to garbage collect largely independently. The effects of these
garbage collections are combined, using recursively structured control
mechanisms, to achieve garbage collection of the entire heap with the
minimum of overheads. Experimental results show that new algorithm
recovers most inaccessible variables more quickly than a straightforward
garbage collection, giving an improved memory utilisation