Memory Placement Optimization Hierarchical Lgroup Support

This feature is new in the Solaris 10 1/06 release and in the Solaris Express 6/05 release.

Hierarchical Lgroup Support (HLS) improves the Memory Placement Optimization (MPO) feature in the Solaris OS. HLS enables the Solaris OS to optimize performance for machines that have more than local memory and remote memory latencies. Machines with four or more Opteron CPUs might have local memory, remote memory, and further remote memory. On such machines, HLS enables the Solaris OS to distinguish between the degrees of remoteness. HLS enables the Solaris OS to allocate resources with the lowest possible latency for applications. The Solaris OS allocates local resources for a given application. And, if local resources are not available by default, the Solaris OS allocates the nearest remote resources.

The Programming Interfaces Guide explains the abstraction that is used by the Solaris OS to identify which resources are near each other for optimizing localization. The guide also described the API that can be used for the locality group (lgroup) abstraction. Man pages are also available for this API. See liblgrp(3LIB).