Originally published in Digital Systems Journal, March/April 1994. Thought I’d dust it off and make it available again.
OpenVMS AXP V1.0 and OpenVMS VAX 6.0 have introduced Auto-tuning Dynamic Memory Allocation for allocation and deallocation of nonpaged pool. Although the internals have changed, the same calls are used to allocate and deallocate pool. This is also one of the few times where Digital has actually reduced the number of SYSGEN parameters.
These changes not only provide for more effective use of nonpaged pool, but also make the code easier to follow.
Continue reading OpenVMS Internals: OpenVMS Nonpaged Pool Management Changes