Platform SDK: Exchange Server

Options for Memory Management

Selecting memory allocation functions is an important step in the design of an application for Microsoft Exchange Server. You can choose from several strategies when selecting a design for memory allocation. Important considerations include the following:

Serialization is an important consideration when choosing memory allocation functions. It occurs when a process must lock out all other processes while a critical section executes. This means that one process must complete all its transactions before the next process begins.

When a large number of such critical sections try to access a process at the same time, performance is affected. Such a process is said to be serialized. Serialization is a rate-determining step — a factor in computing the rate of throughput. If all the processes in a system must spend time in a memory allocator, the performance of the system as a whole is determined by the performance of the memory allocator.