Re: [PLUG] Network based RAM

[sean finney <seanius@seanius.net>]

On Wednesday 05 September 2007 09:06:35 pm Louis Kratz wrote:
> There is a project at http://nfs-swap.dot-heine.de/ called "Swapping
> via NFS for Linux".  It covers some kernel patches that allows you to
> swapon over nfs.
>
> Brent, they don't provide a direct justification, but I imagine it
> could be used for netboot machines that don't have enough memory.

the justification is (or should be) that network speeds have been increasing 
much faster than disk speeds, which are limited by mechanical factors (not 
counting flash-based disks, which are just starting to become viable to the 
average joe these days).  so theoretically using some other machine's 
physical memory via a high-speed network link should give higher (and also 
more scalable) performance for a virtual-memory swap file, vs disk.

i was involved in a project some time ago that directly implemented this as a 
network protocol (not using an ugly hack like nfs):

http://web.cs.swarthmore.edu/~newhall/nswap.html

i don't think the source code was ever published though :(



	sean

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part.

___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group         --        http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion  --   http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug