1. A data processing system comprising: a plurality of interconnected processors; a global count of pages available to the processors in the system for pinning a page in memory; a plurality of local counts respectively associated with groups of the processors, wherein each local count includes an allocation from the global count, is available to the processors in an associated group for page pinning, and is adjusted accordingly in response to page pinning and unpinning by the processors in the associated group, wherein each said local count is decreased by the number of pages to be pinned by a first processor in the associated group and increased by the number of pages to be unpinned by a second processor in the associated group.