Every Data Structure Deserves Lock-Free Memory Reclamation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel lock-free memory management scheme that can be automatically applied to any lock-free data structure, simplifying implementation and reducing overhead without depending on OS lock-free services.

Contribution

It presents the first general, compiler-automatable lock-free memory reclamation scheme applicable to arbitrary lock-free data structures.

Findings

Applicable to all lock-free data structures

Low overhead compared to previous schemes

Does not depend on OS lock-free services

Abstract

Memory-management support for lock-free data structures is well known to be a tough problem. Recent work has successfully reduced the overhead of such schemes. However, applying memory-management support to a data structure remains complex and, in many cases, requires redesigning the data structure. In this paper, we present the first lock-free memory-management scheme that is applicable to general (arbitrary) lock-free data structures and that can be applied automatically via a compiler plug-in. In addition to the simplicity of incorporating to data structures, this scheme provides low overhead and does not rely on the lock freedom of any OS services.