heapsgroups

Heapsgroups are a conceptual design for memory management in which the heap space is partitioned into multiple isolated groups, or heapsgroups, each containing its own heap data structures and metadata. The goal is to improve scalability and locality in multi-core or multi-processor systems by reducing contention on a single global heap and by keeping allocations close to the code that uses them.

Each heapsgroup maintains a local free list, an allocation policy, and potentially structures such as per-group arenas, chunk metadata, and a coordination mechanism (locks or lock-free structures). Groups can be fixed to a thread, a core, or a performance tier, and cross-group reclamation or block transfer mechanisms allow efficient reuse of memory across the system.

Allocation requests are satisfied from the local group's free lists; if insufficient, the allocator may obtain blocks from a neighboring group or from a shared pool according to policy. Deallocation returns blocks to the owning group. Some designs allow dynamic rebalancing of blocks between groups to adapt to workload.

Advantages include reduced contention, improved cache locality, and more predictable allocation times in concurrent workloads. Challenges involve maintaining overall memory utilization, preventing fragmentation across groups, and handling cross-group references or cycles. Implementations must consider synchronization overhead, group sizing, and transfer policies.

In practice, heapsgroups appear in research discussions of scalable allocators, specialized runtimes, and experimental memory systems. They are not widely standardized, and real-world adoption depends on language, runtime, and workload. See also memory allocator, per-thread allocator, arenas, and scalable memory management.