Memory Management Requirements Pos/355

Memory management is a very crucial part of a computer system. According to Rouse and Gibilisco (2012), “Memory management is the process of controlling and coordinating computer memory, assigning portions called blocks to various running programs to optimize overall system performance.” (para.1). Basically, memory management is actually managing the memory of the computer. Systems with virtual memory allow the method of decoupling memory organizations from physical hardware. This method allows the separation of processes and increases the amount of RAM using disk swapping. Memory management systems usually deal with certain issues or requirements and these are: Relocation, Protection, Sharing, and Organization.

Relocation is the process that allows the programs in memory to reside in different parts of the memory at different times. When a program is swapped in and out of the memory it cannot always be placed back in the same location. Relocation allows for that program to be put in a different part of the memory while handling memory references and addresses in the code of the program so they always point to the correct location. Relocation is a crucial requirement in memory management because it is interrelated to the protection and sharing requirements.

Protection is also a crucial part of memory management; although it does not play such a vast role as relocation it prevents the interfering of malfunctioning or malicious code from one program to another. The way this is handled is by controlling memory access rights on the computer; therefore processes require permission to access memory in another processes address space. Memory protection mainly prevents a process from accessing memory that has not been allocated to it.

Sometimes with all of the protection memory still needs to be shared between programs, and this is where shared memory comes into play. This allows multiple programs to share the same program text, and allows several processes to access...