Non-Uniform Memory Access
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008Non-Uniform Memory Access or Non-Uniform Memory Architecture (NUMA) is a computer memory design used in multiprocessors, where the memory access time depends on the memory location relative to a processor. Under NUMA, a processor can access its own local memory faster than non-local memory, that is, memory local to another processor or memory shared between processors.
NUMA architectures logically follow in scaling from symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) architectures. Their commercial development came in work by Burroughs, Convex Computer (later HP), SGI, Sequent and Data General during the 1990s. Techniques developed by these companies later featured in a variety of Unix-like operating systems, as well as to some degree in Windows NT.