Appeal No. 2006-1332 Page 8
Application No. 09/548,687
We find that Blount's remote memory manager function identifies an appropriate
processor to service a request. To wit, "[t]he function of the remote memory manager of
processor unit 10A for example, is to process a request for a virtual page P of data from
the remote memory manager function of processor unit 10B." (Id. at ll. 61-65.) "To
process the request for page P, the remote memory manager function first determines if
the requested page is in the main memory of the unit 10A." (Col. 9, l. 67- col. 10, l. 2.)
"If the page P is there," (col. 10, l. 2), the remote memory manager function identifies
processor 10A as the appropriate processor to service the request and "a copy Pb is
returned to unit 10B . . . ." (Col. 10, ll. 2-3.) Furthermore, "a data structure referred to
as the Virtual Shared Memory Table (VSMT) and shown in FIG. 7, records the fact that
unit 10B has a copy of the requested page in its main memory." (Id. at ll. 3-6.)
"A slightly more involved operation occurs if it is assumed that the requested
page Pa is paged out of the main memory of [processor] unit [10]A so that the only copy
in any main memory is the copy Pb that was previously sent to [processor] unit [10]B."
(Id. at ll. 14-19.) "Assume now that unit C requests a copy of the same page from unit
A. Unit A does have a copy of the requested page P on disk, but this would require a
relatively long disk I/O operation to retrieve it and forward it to
unit C." (Id. at ll. 19-23.) The remote memory manager of processor unit 10A
consequently "checks the [VS]MT data structure for the virtual address of the requested
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