NUMA

Definitions

1. Non-Uniform Memory Access — a memory architecture in multi-socket servers where each CPU has fast access to its local memory and slower access to remote memory (attached to other CPUs). Programs that access local memory perform significantly better. Database servers, especially PostgreSQL and MySQL, benefit from NUMA-aware configuration.

   In plain English: A server memory design where each CPU has its own 'nearby' memory that's faster to access than memory attached to other CPUs.

   Example: "The database performs 30% better with NUMA-aware memory allocation — all shared buffers are allocated on the same socket as the database process."

Related Terms

• Task Parallelism
• Hot Path
• Von Neumann Bottleneck
• Latency vs Throughput
• CPU Cache
• Branch Prediction
• SIMD
• NVMe
• Superscalar
• FLOPS
• Heavyweight
• On the Metal