A physical address extension feature maps multiple virtual memory spaces
to an extended physical memory. A virtual space manager dynamically
allocates pages of the physical memory to respective virtual spaces. The
virtual space manager responds to a request from an application for
allocation of a page of physical memory by returning a cookie indicating
the allocated page. The virtual space manager responds to a request
including the cookie by switching virtual address translation to the
virtual memory space including the indicated page. The cookie is used to
access a cookie cache of state information on the last page of virtual
memory having been mapped into physical memory. For example, segments of
the page store block map entries for snapshot copies, and the cookie
cache caches the last-accessed values of the block numbers and their
location within the page.