Patent ID: 8862834

Claim:
A method for providing a shared memory translation facility, the method comprising: receiving a request for access to a memory address from a requestor at a configuration, the receiving at a shared memory translation mechanism; based on the memory address, determining whether the memory address refers to a shared memory object (SMO), the SMO accessible by a plurality of configurations managed in different zones of memory, wherein the request comprises a shared memory table index and a shared memory indicator incorporated in the memory address to indicate that the memory address refers to the SMO; locating in a SMO table a shared memory table entry based on the shared memory table index; based on determining that the memory address refers to the SMO, determining whether the configuration has access to the SMO, wherein determining whether the configuration has access to the SMO is further based on one or more access control bits of the shared memory table entry in the SMO table; and providing the requestor a system absolute address for the SMO and access to the SMO based on determining that the configuration has access to the SMO, thereby allowing direct interchange of data between the configuration and the plurality of configurations.