Integrating Epoch Persistency with TSO

Summary

Non-volatile memory (NVM) technologies promise the durability of disks with performance similar to that of volatile memory (RAM). The semantics of NVM, however, are far from obvious, especially regarding its interaction with the processor's consistency semantics.

We propose a candidate semantics for NVM, called PTSO (persistent total store order), by integrating the buffered epoch persistency model with the TSO memory model of the x86 and SPARC architectures.

We further formulate the notion of persistent linearisability as a correctness criterion for libraries in the context of persistent memory, develop two persistent queue implementations, and prove their correctness.

Paper

• Azalea Raad and Viktor Vafeiadis.
  Persistence semantics for weak memory: Integrating epoch persistency with the TSO memory model.
  Proc. ACM Program. Lang. 2, OOPSLA, Article 137
  [Paper] [@ACM] [Appendix]

People

• Azalea Raad (MPI-SWS)
• Viktor Vafeiadis (MPI-SWS)

See also

• More papers about persistent memory.