Principles of Locality

This lecture delves into the concept of locality in computing systems, exploring temporal, spatial, and network locality. The instructor discusses how locality impacts system design, from caching to memory allocation, and presents various approaches to exploit locality for efficiency, such as optimizing data layout, designing locks, and minimizing data movement. Examples include hierarchical locks for NUMA machines, server-client models, and dynamic data placement strategies. The lecture also touches on the challenges and trade-offs involved in leveraging locality for performance improvements across different system components.