Patent ID: 8806166

Claim:
A method for memory allocation in a multi-node computer, the method comprising: evaluating, a plurality of times throughout operation of the multi-node computer, memory affinity for a node in dependence upon page frame demand for page frames on the node, including: calculating a normalized measure of page faults including multiplying a measure of page faults by a normalizing factor, wherein the normalizing factor is the proportion of memory installed on other nodes relative to the memory installed on all the nodes of the system; evaluating memory affinity in dependence upon the normalized measure of page faults, wherein a page fault is an interrupt triggered by a memory management unit (‘MMU’) in response to a request from a process for memory access to a page in virtual memory that is not mapped to a page frame in memory; and calculating, in dependence upon the normalized measure of page faults, a weighted coefficient of memory affinity, the weighted coefficient representing desirability of allocating memory from the node; and allocating, for each evaluation dynamically throughout operation of the multi-node computer in dependence upon the weighted coefficient of memory affinity, memory.