Patent ID: 8417897

Claim:
A method, comprising: using a computer to perform: executing program instructions comprising code to be completed as an atomic transaction, wherein the code comprises one or more memory access operations to a shared memory that is accessible to a plurality of concurrently executing transactions, wherein the shared memory comprises a plurality of data partitions at least some of which are owned by respective ones of the plurality of concurrently executing transactions, and wherein each data partition is associated with a respective locale guard comprising a value that indicates a state of the data partition; wherein for a given memory access operation of the atomic transaction targeting an object in the shared memory, said executing the program instructions comprises: performing the given memory access operation using one of a plurality of contention mediation mechanisms, wherein selection of the one of the plurality of contention mediation mechanisms is dependent on the value indicating the state in the respective locale guard associated with the data partition in which the object resides in the shared memory.