File partitioning as a means to reduce lock contention in the multiprocessor environment

Contention for shared resources significantly affects utilization and response time of multiprocessor systems. The analytical model describes in the paper deals with contention in acquiring exclusive locks during access to shared data structures. File partitioning allows to reduce lock contention and to provide acceptable system response time. The number of required file partitions considered in the paper is a function of increase in lock acquisition time compared to the no contention case. It is shown that the largest reduction in lock contention is achieved by using only a few partitions