Resource allocation

[Peter Marks]

My recent background in distributed systems involved the use of Jini
Technology (http://www.jini.org) Jini has the notion of a Lease. A
lease is given by entity L (Landlord) to entity R (Renter) if R is
using some resource in L (a room - e.g., occupying a slot in a table).
A lease is only good for a certain length of time. When the lease
expires it is up to R to renew the lease with L. If the lease is not
renewed then L is free to give the resource (the room) to some other
entity. Leasing prevents the accumulation of garbage in a dynamic and
distributed application. Importantly, making sure that the lease is
renewed is the responsibility of the Renter, not the Landlord. So the
Landlord does not have to keep asking its Renters whether they are
still alive, a task which is often difficult to do. How long does one
wait to hear back from the Renter, for example?

How is the management of unused storage handled in Erlang? Is it done
by linking one process to another?  Or, is the type of relationship
where one process uses resources in another process not used in Erlang
programs?

Thanks,

Peter