Patent ID: 7882310

Claim:
A method, comprising: associating entries of a memory allocation table (MAT) managing a shared memory in a multiprocessor system with nodes in a binary tree such that the nodes and the entries are grouped into hierarchical levels; associating the nodes and the entries with segments of the shared memory of the multi-processor system such that higher level nodes and entries are associated with larger numbers of contiguous segments of the shared memory and lower level nodes and entries are associated with smaller numbers of contiguous segments of the shared memory; selecting one or more of the contiguous segments of the shared memory by one or more processors of the multiprocessor system by evaluating status information of entries of the MAT corresponding to a desired size of the shared memory to be reserved followed by evaluating status information of one or more higher level entries; and changing status of the one or more contiguous segments by the one or more processors from available to partially reserved to indicate the selection.