Distributed memory

Distributed memory is a concept used in parallel computing. It means that in a multi-processor system each processor has its own memory. This requires that computional tasks have to be distributed on the different processors for processing. After the processing the data has to be reassembled.

The related term is Distributed shared memory, a model in which in addition to private memories of the nodes there exist large, conceptually shared memory (though in reality such memory may be physically distributed between many different nodes, hence the name).