Either the act of making a resource available to a process, or the amount of a particular resource that has been allocated. The context almost invariably makes clear which meaning is intended. The amount allocated in the second form of usage may either be a period of time if the entire resource is allocated, as with a processor, or it may be a number of subunits in the case of a resource, such as memory, that is made up of a large number of essentially identical subunits, of which some are allocated to the process.