Scalable Range Locks

A computer comprising one or more processors and memory may implement multiple threads performing mutually exclusive lock acquisition operations on disjoint ranges of a shared resource each using atomic compare and swap (CAS) operations. A linked list of currently locked ranges is maintained and, upon entry to a lock acquisition operation, a thread waits for all locked ranges overlapping the desired range to be released then inserts a descriptor for the desired range into the linked list using a single CAS operation. To release a locked range, a thread executes a single fetch and add (FAA) operation. The operation may be extended to support simultaneous exclusive and non-exclusive access by allowing overlapping ranges to be locked for non-exclusive access and by performing an additional validation after locking to provide conflict resolution should a conflict be detected.