Module-1

Real Time Systems: A System is called Real Time System, when we need quantitative
notion of time to describe behaviour of system.
➢ System correctness depends not only on functioning but also on timing constraint,
applied on system.
Example: Air bag deployment must be within 1-2 milliseconds after accident, else the system
is considered as failure.
Examples of real-time systems include digital control, command and control, signal
processing etc.

1.1 EXAMPLES OF REAL TIME APPLICATIONS:

1.Digital Control:

• Many real-time systems are embedded in sensors and actuators and function as digital
controllers. Following Figure shows such a system.

• The term plant in the block diagram refers to a controlled system, for example, a fire
alarm system, an aircraft, a patient.
• The state of the plant is monitored by sensors and can be changed by actuators. The
real-time (computing) system estimates from the sensor readings the current state of
the plant and computes a control output based on the difference between the current
state and the desired state (called reference input in the figure).
• We call this computation the control-law computation of the controller. The output
thus generated activates the actuators, which performs necessary action based on the
computation.
• The analog version is then transformed into a digital (i.e., discrete-time and discrete-
state) version.
• The resultant controller is a sampled data system. It typically samples (i.e., reads) and
digitizes the analog sensor readings periodically and carries out its control-law
computation every period.

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 • The sequence of digital outputs thus produced is then converted back to an analog
form needed to activate the actuators.

Here As an example, we consider an analog single-input/single-output controller. The analog

sensor reading y(t) gives the measured state of the plant at time t.Let
denote the difference between the desired state r (t) and the measured state y(t) at time t . The
output u(t) of the controller.Such a system is called a (feedback) control loop or simply a
loop. We can implement it as an infinite timed loop

a. Pseudo code :
set timer to interrupt periodically with period T ;
at each timer interrupt, do
do analog-to-digital conversion to get y;
compute control output u;
output u and do digital-to-analog conversion;
end do;

Here, we assume that the system provides a timer. Once set by the program, the timer
generates an interrupt every T units of time until its setting is cancelled.

b. Selection of Sampling Period. The length T of time between any two consecutive
instants at which y(t) and r (t) are sampled is called the sampling period.
• T is a key design choice. A small sampling period means more frequent control-law
computation and higher processor-time demand. We want a sampling period T that
achieves a good compromise. In making this selection, we need to consider
responsiveness of the overall system.

c. Multirate Systems. A plant is defined by multiple state variables (e.g.,fire alarm system
is having different types of sensors like heat,optical,smoke sensors ). Therefore, it is
monitored by multiple sensors and controlled by multiple actuators. We can think of a
multivariate (i.e., multi-input/multi-output)controller for such a plant as a system of
single-output controllers.
As different state variables have different sampling periods required to achieve smooth
responses. Digital controllers usually use multiple rates and are therefore called multirate
systems.

d. Timing Characteristics:
Each control-law computation can begin shortly after the beginning of each sampling period
when the most recent sensor data become available. (Typically, the time taken by an analog-
to-digital converter to produce sampled data and place the data in memory does not vary from
period to period and is very small compared with the sampling period.)
The computation should be completed before the next period processed sensor data is
available. This objective is met when the response time of each control-law computation
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never exceeds the sampling period. It should be maintained such that the variation in
response time does not exceed some threshold.

2. HIGH-LEVEL CONTROLS
Controllers in a complex monitor and control system are typically organized hierarchically.
One or more digital controllers at the lowest level directly control the physical plant. Each
output of a higher-level controller is a reference input of one or more lower-level
controllers.The higher-level controllers interfaces with the operator(s).

Figure 1–4 shows a more complex example: the hierarchy of flight control, flight
management and air traffic control systems.The Air Traffic Control (ATC) system is at the
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highest level. It regulates the flow of flights to each destination airport. It does so by
assigning to each aircraft an arrival time to the destination. The aircraft is supposed to arrive
at the metering fix at the assigned arrival time.
• The ATC system monitors the aircraft in its coverage area and the environment(e.g,
weather condition) and generates and presents the information needed by the
operators(i.e., the air traffic controllers). Outputs from the ATC system include the
assigned arrival times to metering fixes for individual aircraft.
• The assigned arrival time is a reference input to the flight management system. The flight
management system chooses a time-referenced flight path that brings the aircraft to the
metering fix at the assigned arrival time with the help of navigation.
• The cruise speed, turn radius, decent/accent rates, and so forth required to follow the
chosen time-referenced flight path are decided at the flight controller at the lowest level
of the control hierarchy.

As stated earlier, the outputs of ATC system are reference inputs to on-board flight
management systems. Thus, the ATC system indirectly controls the embedded components in
low levels of the control hierarchy. In addition, the ATC system provides voice and telemetry
links to on-board avionics. Thus it supports the communication among the operators at both
levels (i.e., the pilots and air traffic controllers).

3. Signal processing:
Most signal processing applications have some kind of real-time requirements. Examples are
digital filtering, video and voice compressing/decompression, and radar signal processing.

Radar Signal Processing : Radar signal processing and tracking system consists of an
Input/Output (I/O) subsystem that samples and digitizes the echo signal from the radar and
places the sampled values in a shared memory. An array of digital signal processors
processes these sampled values.
• To search for objects of interest in its coverage area, the radar scans the area by pointing
its antenna in one direction at a time. During the time the antenna dwells in a direction, it
first sends a short radio frequency pulse. It then collects and examines the echo signal
returning to the antenna.
• The echo signal consists solely of background noise if the transmitted pulse does not hit
any object. On the other hand, if there is a reflective object (e.g., an airplane) at a distance
x meters from the antenna, the echo signal reflected by the object returns to the antenna at
approximately 2x/c seconds after the transmitted pulse, where per
second is the speed of light.
• The echo signal collected at this time should be stronger than when there is no reflected
signal. If the object is moving, the frequency of the reflected signal is no longer equal to
that of the transmitted pulse.

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Therefore, by examining the strength and frequency spectrum of the echo signal, the system
can determine whether there are objects in the direction pointed at by the antenna and if there
are objects, what their positions and velocities are.

4. Real Time Databases:

The term real-time database systems refers to a diverse spectrum of information systems,
ranging from stock price quotation systems, to track records databases, to real-time file
systems.
• Specifically, a real-time database contains data objects,that represent real-world objects.
The attributes of an object are those of the represented real world object. For example, an
air traffic control database contains objects that represent aircraft in the coverage area.
The attributes of such an object include the position and heading of the aircraft.
• The values of these attributes are updated periodically based on the measured values of
the actual position and heading provided by the radar system. Without this update, the
stored position and heading will deviate more and more from the actual position and
heading.
• Updates of the data should be done to maintain consistency and data integrity in the
real time databases.
• Concurrency control mechanisms, such as two-phase locking, have traditionally been
used to ensure the serializability of read and update transactions and maintain data
integrity of nonreal-time databases. These mechanisms often make it more difficult for
updates to complete in time. Late updates may cause the data to become temporally
inconsistent. Yet temporal consistency of real-time data is often as important as, or even
more important than, data integrity.
• Concurrency control mechanisms required to maintain a sense of consistency tend to
improve the timeliness of updates and reads.

5. Multimedia Applications: Video conferencing is one of the real time multimedia

applications. Compression, decompression, synchronization etc should be done within the
appropriate time to maintain quality of the video.
• Decompression should be done just before the time the video and audio are presented, in
other words, on the just-in-time basis.
• Resolution should be maintained,The term resolution roughly refers to the number of
pixels in each frame (i.e., the size of the frame) and the number of bits used to encode
each pixel (i.e., intensity and color resolution).
• Together, the resolution and frame rate of a video tell us roughly the amount of time
required to compress/decompress
• It and the amounts of storage and transmission bandwidth required to store and transmit
it. Similarly, the quality of an audio component depends on the sampling rate and
granularity used to digitize the audio signal.

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• Another dimension of quality of a multimedia application is lip synchronization. This
term refers to the temporal synchronization of the video frames and related audio data
units. In the case where the video is that of a speaker, the speaker’s lips should appear to
move to make the accompanied speech.

1.2 HARD VS SOFT REAL TIME SYSTEMS:

Release Times, Deadlines and Timing Constraints:

Release times and deadlines of jobs are two parameters that distinguish jobs in real-time
systems from those in non real-time systems.
1. Release time:
The release time of a job is the instant of time at which the job becomes available for
execution. The job can be scheduled and executed at any time at or after its release time
whenever its data and control dependency conditions are met.
• If all jobs are released when the system begins execution, then there is said to be no
release time.
2. Deadline:
The deadline of a job is the instant of time by which its execution is required to be
completed. In the digital control system, each control-law computation job must complete by
the release time of the subsequent job. If deadline is infinity, then job has no deadline.
• Response time: Response time is the length of time from the release time of the job to
the instant when it gets resource for execution.
• Relative Deadline: Relative deadline is the length of the time taken for response time
and the time taken to execute a job i.e., response time plus execution time.
• Absolute Deadline: The Absolute deadline of a job, is equal to its release time plus
its relative deadline.
In general, we call a constraint imposed on the timing behaviour of a job a timing constraint.
In its simplest form, a timing constraint of a job can be specified in terms of its release time
and relative or absolute deadlines.
Timing constraint: Constraint imposed on timing behavior of a job: based on timing
constraint real time systems are divided into hard or soft.
NOTE:
• Each unit of work that is scheduled and executed by the system is called a job, where as
task is Set of related jobs that has to be executed.
• Every job executes on some System Resource, Eg: CPU,a network ,Disk etc., Systems
resources are of two types active resources(processors) and passive resources(resources).

HARD AND SOFT TIMING CONSTRAINTS

It is common to divide timing constraints into two types: hard and soft.
1. A timing constraint or deadline is hard if the failure to meet it is considered to be a fatal
fault. A hard deadline is imposed on a job because a late result produced by the job after
the deadline may have disastrous consequences. (As examples, a late command to stop a

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 train may cause a collision, and a bomb dropped too late may hit a civilian population
instead of the intended military target).
2. In contrast, the late completion of a job that has a soft deadline is undesirable.
However, a few misses of soft deadlines do no serious harm; only the system’s overall
performance becomes poorer and poorer when more and more jobs with soft deadlines
complete late.
3. In real-time systems literature, the distinction between hard and soft timing constraints is
stated quantitatively in terms of the usefulness of results as functions of the tardinesses
of jobs.
• The tardiness of a job measures how late it completes respective to its deadline. Its
tardiness is zero if the job completes at or before its deadline; otherwise, if the job is late,
its tardiness is equal to the difference between its completion time (i.e., the time instant
at which it completes execution) and its deadline.
The usefulness of a result produced by a soft real-time job (i.e, a job with a soft deadline)
decreases gradually as the tardiness of the job increases, but the usefulness of a result
produced by a hard real-time job (i.e., a job with a hard deadline) falls off abruptly and
may even become negative when the tardiness of the job becomes larger than zero.
4. For hard real-time applications (e.g., digital controllers), all the tasks and jobs executed in
every operation mode of the system are known a priori. Safety and reliability is increased
for hard real time systems,such that they should not miss the deadline.
5. For hard real time system, temporal quality of service is guaranteed i.e, it guarantees
that task will be executed with in its deadline and where as by the soft real time systems,
best-effort services are given i.e., it tries at most to complete its job with atleast a certain
probability by its deadline. The deadline of a job is softer if the usefulness of its result
decreases at a slower rate.
6. For Soft real time systems, meeting all deadlines is not the only consideration, An
occasional missed deadline or aborted execution is usually considered tolerable; it may be
more important for such a system to have a small average response time and high
throughput.
• Multimedia systems are soft real time systems that provide the user with services of
good quality. For example, a frame of a movie must be delivered every thirtieth of a
second, and the difference in the times when each video frame is displayed and when the
accompanied speech is presented should be no more than 80 msec. However, the users
are often willing to tolerate a few glitches, as long as the glitches occur rarely and for
short lengths of time.

1.3 Reference model of Real Time Systems:

A good model abstracts the irrelevant details. It doesn’t keep track of irrelevant properties of
system resources (e.g., whether the processor is by Intel or Motorola or whether the
transmission medium is cable or fibre.)It allows us to focus on the timing properties and
resource requirements of system components and the way the operating system allocates the
available system resources among them.
• Each system is characterized by three elements:
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(1) a workload model that describes the applications supported by the system,
(2) a resource model that describes the system resources available to the applications, and
(3) Algorithms that define how the application system uses the resources at all times.

1.3.1 PROCESSORS AND RESOURCES:

All the system resources are divided into two major types: Processors and Resources.

➢ Processors are called active resources; computers, transmission links, disks, and
database server are examples of Processors. They carry out machine instructions,
move data from one place to another, retrieve files, process queries, and so on. Every
job must have one or more processors in order to execute and make progress toward
completion.
➢ Resources are passive resources. Examples of resources are memory, sequence
numbers, mutexes, and database locks. A job may need some resources in addition to
the processor in order to make progress.
One of the attributes of a processor is its speed. The rate of progress a job makes toward its
completion depends on the speed of the processor on which it executes.In contrast, we do not
associate speed with a resource. In other words, how long a job takes to complete does not
depend on the speed of any resource it uses during execution.

• As an example,a data link that uses the sliding-window scheme to regulate message
transmission. Only a maximum number of messages are allowed to be in transit (i.e., they
have been transmitted but their reception has not yet been positively acknowledged). One
way to implement this scheme is for the sender to maintain a window of valid sequence
numbers.. A message waiting to be transmitted must first be given one of the valid
sequence numbers before it can be transmitted. We model the transmission of a message
as a job; the job executes when the message is being transmitted. This job needs the data
link, as well as a valid sequence number. The data link is a processor. The sequence
numbers are units of the sequence-number resource.

1.3.2 TEMPORAL PARAMETERS OF REAL-TIME WORKLOAD

• A set of related jobs that execute to support a function of the system is a task.
• Each job Ji is characterized by its temporal parameters, functional parameters,
resource parameters, and interconnection parameters. Its temporal parameters tell us
its timing constraints and behaviour. Its interconnection parameters describe how it
depends on other jobs and how other jobs depend on it. Its functional parameters specify
the intrinsic properties of the job. Finally, its resource parameters give us its resource
requirements.
• Release time, absolute deadline, and relative deadline of a job are temporal
parameters.

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• The time interval between the release time and absolute deadline of the job is called its
feasible interval.

1. Fixed and Aperiodic Release times:

• If Number of jobs & the number of tasks are known priorly, it is possible to ensure
that the system meet its hard real-time requirements and the release time is fixed i.e.,
release time is fixed when system is responding for periodic events.
• In many real time systems, we do not know exactly when each job will be released, it
may be varying this is called release time jitter.
• Almost every real-time system is required to respond to external events which occur at
random instants of time. When such an event occurs, the system executes a set of jobs in
response. The release times of these jobs are not known until the event triggering them
occurs.
These jobs are called sporadic jobs or aperiodic jobs because they are released at random
time instants.
2. Execution Time:
Another temporal parameter of a job, is its execution time, is the amount of time required to
complete the execution of Job
• When it executes alone and has all the resources it requires, the value of this parameter
depends mainly on the complexity of the job and the speed of the processor used to
execute the job, not on how the job is scheduled.
• The actual amount of time required by a job to complete its execution depends on many
reasons like scheduling, conditional branches etc. As examples, a computation may
contain conditional branches, and these conditional branches may take different amounts
of time to complete. The branches taken during the execution of the computation job
depend on the input data.
If the underlying system has performance enhancing features (e.g., cache memory and
pipeline), the amount of time a computation takes to complete may vary each time it executes
even when it has no conditional branches.
For these reasons, the actual execution time of a computation job is unknown until it
completes.
Both the execution time and release time effects the deadline of the real time systems.

1.3.3 PERIODIC TASK MODEL

The periodic task model is a well-known deterministic workload model. Many scheduling
algorithms based on this model have good performance and well understood behaviour and
suiable for hard real time applications.
• In the periodic task model, each computation is executed repeatedly at regular time
intervals in order to provide a function of the system on a continuing basis is modelled as
a period task, where each periodic task is a sequence of jobs.
The period pi of the periodic task Ti is the minimum length of all time intervals between
release times of consecutive jobs in Task.

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• Generally, the period and execution time of every periodic task in the system are known.
The accuracy of the periodic task model decreases with increasing jitter in release times
and variations in execution times.
a) PHASE of a task: The release time of the first job in each task is called the phase of a
Task. φi is used to denote the phase of Task , that is, φi = ri,1. In general, different tasks
may have different phases. Some tasks are in phase, meaning that they have the same
phase.

b) HYPERPERIOD:
Hyperperiod is the smallest interval of time after which the periodic patterns of all the tasks is
repeated.
It is the least common multiple of pi for i = 1, 2, . . . n. A time interval of length H is called a
hyperperiod of the periodic tasks.
The length of a hyperperiod of three periodic tasks with periods 3, 4, and 10 is 60.

c) Utilization of processor: Utilization by the task is the ratio of execution time and period
i.e., ui = ei /pi keeps a processor busy.
The total utilization U of all the tasks in the system is the sum of the utilizations of the
individual tasks in it. So, if the execution times of the three periodic tasks are 1, 1, and 3, and
their periods are 3, 4, and 10, respectively, then their utilizations are 0.33, 0.25 and 0.3. The
total utilization of the tasks is 0.88; these tasks can keep a processor busy at most 88 percent
of the time. Utilization of the processor will be less if more number of dependent jobs are
present in the task.
However, Response time and throughput are not considered in hard real time applications
only primary consideration is to complete the execution of all the jobs in the task by the time
of its deadline.

d) Aperiodic and Sporadic Tasks

Real-time system has to respond to external events whose release times are not known a
priori. Tasks with irregular arrival times are aperiodic tasks. Aperiodic Tasks are used to
handle the processing requirements of random events. Aperiodic task typically has a soft
deadline. Aperiodic tasks that have hard deadlines are called Sporadic Tasks.
• The interarrival times between consecutive jobs in such a task may vary widely. We
therefore want to optimize the responsiveness of the system for the aperiodic jobs, but
never at the expense of hard real-time tasks whose deadlines must be met at all times.
• Tasks containing jobs that are released at random time instants and have hard deadlines
are sporadic tasks. We treat them as hard real-time tasks. Our primary concern is to
ensure that their deadlines are always met; minimizing their response times is of
secondary importance.

1.3.4 PRECEDENCE CONSTRAINTS AND DATA DEPENDENCY

Data and control dependencies among jobs may constrain the order in which they can
execute.
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In scheduling theory, the jobs are said to have precedence constraints if they are
constrained to execute in some order. Otherwise, if the jobs can execute in any order, they
are said to be independent.
• As an example, we consider queries to an information server. Suppose that before each
query is processed and the requested information retrieved, its authorization to access the
requested information is first checked. The retrieval job cannot begin execution until the
authentication job completes. Similarly, in a communication system, the jobs that
generate an acknowledgement of a message and transmit the acknowledgement message
cannot begin until the job that receives and processes the message completes.

Precedence Graph and Task Graph

• We use a partial-order relation <, called a precedence relation, over the set of jobs to
specify the precedence constraints among jobs. A job Ji is a predecessor of another job Jk
(and Jk a successor of Ji) if Jk cannot begin execution until the execution of Ji completes.
• A shorthand notation to state this fact is Ji < Jk . Ji is an immediate predecessor of Jk
(and Jk is an immediate successor of Ji) if Ji < Jk and there is no other job Jj such that Ji
< Jj < Jk.
• Two jobs Ji and Jk are independent when neither Ji < Jk nor Jk < Ji .
• A job with predecessors is ready for execution when the time is at or after its release time
and all of its predecessors are completed.
A classical way to represent the precedence constraints among jobs in a set J is by a directed
graph G = (J,<). Each vertex in this graph represents a job in J. We will call each vertex by
the name of the job represented by it. There is a directed edge from the vertex Ji to the vertex
Jk when the job Ji is an immediate predecessor of the job Jk . This graph is called a
precedence graph.

The numbers in the bracket above each job give its feasible interval. The edges in the graph
represent dependencies among jobs. If all the edges are precedence edges, representing
precedence constraints, then the graph is a precedence graph.
• Specifically, the system described by the graph in above Figure includes two periodic
tasks.
➢ The task whose jobs are represented by the vertices in the top row has phase 0, period 2,
and relative deadline 7. The jobs in it are independent; there are no edges to or from
these jobs. In other words, the jobs released in later periods are ready for execution as
soon as they are released even though some job released earlier is not yet complete.

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• The vertices in the second row of represent jobs in a periodic task with phase 2, period 3,
and relative deadline 3. The jobs in it are dependent;
➢ The first job is the immediate predecessor of the second job, the second job is the
immediate predecessor of the third job, and so on. The precedence graph of this task is a
chain as shown here. Hence the jobs must be executed in serial order.

A task graph,is an extended precedence graph following Figure shows a task graph. As in a
precedence graph, the vertices in a task graph represent jobs. They are shown as circles and
squares in this figure.
• Many types of interactions and communication among jobs are not captured by a
precedence graph but can be captured by a task graph. Unlike a precedence graph, a task
graph may contain different types of edges that represent different types of dependencies.

➢ AND/OR Precedence Constraints

In the classical model, a job with more than one immediate predecessor must wait until all its
immediate predecessors have been completed before its execution can begin.
▪ Whenever it is necessary to be specific, we call such jobs AND jobs and dependencies
among them AND precedence constraints.
▪ AND jobs are represented by unfilled circles in the task graph in Figure 3–1. An example
is the job labeled J in this figure. All three of its immediate predecessors must be
completed before J can begin execution. These predecessors may execute in any order
relative to each other, but they must all be completed before the message transmission job
can begin.
In contrast, an OR job is one which can begin execution at or after its release time provided
one or some of its immediate predecessors has been completed. In Figure 3–1, we represent
OR jobs by square vertices, as exemplified by the two square vertices at the bottom of the
graph.
▪ The one labeled 2/3 can begin execution as soon as two out of its three immediate
predecessors complete.
▪ Similarly, we can model a two-version computation as the two immediate predecessors of
a 1/2 OR job. Only one of them needs to be completed before the OR job can begin
execution.
➢ Conditional Branches:This system can easily be modeled by a task graph, only one
of all the immediate successors of a job whose outgoing edges express OR constraints
is to be executed. Such a job is called a branch job.
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 ▪ In a meaningful task graph, there is a join job associated with each branch job. In
Figure 3–1, these jobs are represented by filled circles.The subgraph that begins from
a vertex representing a branch job and ends at the vertex representing the associated
join job is called a conditional block.
▪ The conditional block in Figure 3–1 has two conditional branches: Either the upper
conditional branch, containing a chain of jobs, or the lower conditional branch,
containing only one job, is to be executed.
➢ Temporal Dependency
▪ Some jobs may be constrained to complete within a certain amount of time relative to one
another. We call the difference in the completion times of two jobs the temporal distance
between them.
▪ Jobs are said to have a temporal distance constraint if their temporal distance must be no
more than some finite value. Jobs with temporal distance constraints may or may not have
deadlines.
▪ As an example, we consider the display of video frames and the accompanying audio
when the video is that of a person speaking. To have lip synchronization, the time
between the display of each frame and the generation of the corresponding audio segment
must be no more than 160 msec.

➢ Data Dependency
Data dependency cannot be captured by a precedence graph but by task graph. In many real
time systems, jobs communicate via shared data.
▪ Oftentimes, the designer chooses not to synchronize producer and consumer jobs. Rather,
each producer places the data generated by it in a shared address space to be used by the
consumer at any time. In this case, the classical precedence graph should show that the
producer and consumer are independent because they are not explicitly constrained to
execute in turn.
▪ As an example, in an avionics system, the navigation job updates the location of the
airplane periodically. These data are placed in a shared space. Whenever the flight
management job needs navigation data, it reads the most current data produced by the
navigation job. There is no precedence constraint between the navigation job and the
flight management job.
▪ In a task graph, data dependencies among jobs are represented explicitly by
datadependency edges among jobs. There is a data-dependency edge from a vertex Ji to
vertex Jk in the task graph if the job Jk consumes data generated by Ji.
▪ To ensure data integrity, some locking mechanism may be in place, and this mechanism
allows only one job to access the shared data at a time. This leads to resource contention,
which may also constrain the manner in which jobs execute.

1.3.5 FUNCTIONAL PARAMETERS

While scheduling and resource access-control decisions are made functional characteristics of
jobs also affect these decisions. The workload model must explicitly describe these relevant
properties,among them are preemptivity, criticality, optional interval, and laxity type.
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 ➢ Preemptivity of Jobs
Executions of jobs can often be interleaved. The scheduler may suspend the execution of a
less urgent job and give the processor to a more urgent job. Later when the more urgent job
completes, the scheduler returns the processor to the less urgent job so the job can resume
execution. This interruption of job execution is called preemption.
▪ A job is preemptable if its execution can be suspended at any time to allow the execution
of other jobs and, later on, can be resumed from the point of suspension.
▪ A job is nonpreemptable if it must be executed from start to completion without
interruption. This constraint may be imposed because its execution, if suspended and the
processor given to other jobs, must be executed again from the beginning.
▪ During preemption, the system must first save the state of the preempted job at the time
of preemption so it can resume the job from that state.
▪ An interrupt handling job usually begins by saving the state of the processor (i.e., storing
the processor status register, the stack pointer, the program counter, and so on).
▪ After saving the contents of these registers in memory and before the preempting job can
start, the operating system must load the new processor status register, clear pipelines,
and so & these actions are collectively called a context switch. The amount of time
required to accomplish a context switch is called a context-switch time,which mean the
overhead work done during preemption and the time required to accomplish the work.

➢ Criticality of Jobs
In any system, jobs are not equally important. The importance (or criticality) of a job is a
positive number that indicates how critical the job is with respect to other jobs; the more
critical the job, the larger its importance.
▪ In literature, the terms priority and weight are often used to refer to importance; the more
important a job, the higher its priority or the larger its weight.
▪ During an overload when it is not possible to schedule all the jobs to meet their deadlines,
it may make sense to sacrifice the less critical jobs so that the more critical jobs can meet
their deadlines.
▪ The information concerning the criticality of jobs must be given to the scheduler by
scheduling and resource access-control algorithms.
▪ Assigning importance to each job is a natural way to do so.For example, in a flight
control and management system, the navigation job is more critical than the job that runs
the in-flight movies, and so on.

➢ Optional Executions
It is often possible to structure an application so that some jobs are optional.
▪ If an optional job completes late or is not executed at all, the system performance may
degrade, but function satisfactorily. In contrast, jobs that are not optional are mandatory;
they must be executed to completion.
▪ Therefore, during a transient overload when it is not possible to complete all the jobs in
time, we may choose to discard optional jobs (i.e, leave them unexecuted or partially
executed) so that the mandatory jobs can complete in time. In this way, the system can
Sneha Sureddy
Real Time Systems Notes Module-1
 trade the quality of the results it produces and the services it delivers for timeliness of its
results and services.
▪ In our model, the optional parameter of each job indicates the portion of the job that is
optional. Marking a job or a portion of a job optional is another way for the designer to
indicate that the job is not critical.
By explicitly identifying the optional jobs and using a scheduling strategy that takes
advantage of this information, the designer can control the manner in which the system
degrades.

➢ Laxity Type(Laxity Function)

The laxity type of a job indicates whether its timing constraints are soft or hard. This function
gives the usefulness of the result produced by the job as a function of its tardiness.
▪ Below Figure gives usefulness functions as examples. The ones shown as solid step
functions are usually associated with hard real-time jobs. The usefulness of the result
becomes zero or negative as soon as the job is tardy i.e., it is better not to execute the job
than to execute it and complete it late.
▪ The transmission and execution of a command to release a bomb on a target is an
example of jobs with this laxity type.
▪ The dotted ones show that The usefulness of the result of soft real time systems,which
decreases gradually & later if deadlines are continuously missed, the usefulness of the
result becomes zero.

1.3.6 RESOURCE PARAMETERS OF JOBS

Every job requires a processor throughout its execution. In addition to a processor, a job may
also require some resources.

Sneha Sureddy
Real Time Systems Notes Module-1
 ➢ Preemptivity of Resources: If a resource is nonpreemptable, it is allocated to a job,
other jobs needing the resource unit must wait until the job completes its use.
▪ Otherwise, if jobs can use every unit of a resource in an interleaved fashion, the
resource is preemptable.
▪ The lock on a data object in a database is an example of nonpreemptable resource.
When a job modeling a transaction that reads and writes the data object has acquired
the lock, other jobs that also require this lock at the time must wait.
▪ We can preempt the transmission of a less urgent message in preference to more
urgent messages without having to retransmit the less urgent message in entirety. In
other words, message transmission jobs are in fact preemptable.
➢ Resource Graph
We can describe the configuration of the resources using a resource graph. In a resource
graph, there is a vertex Ri for every processor or resource in the system.
▪ The attributes of the vertex are the parameters of the resource. In particular, the resource
type of a resource tells us whether the resource is a processor or a (passive) resource, and
its number gives us the number of available units.
▪ While edges in task graphs represent different types of dependencies among jobs, edges
in a resource graph represent the relationship among resources. Using different types of
edges, we can describe different configurations of the underlying system.
▪ The resource graph describes the amounts of the resources available to execute the
application system, the attributes of the resources, and the rules governing their usage.
Jobs are scheduled and allocated resources according to a chosen set of scheduling algorithms
and resource access-control protocols. The module which implements these algorithms is
called the scheduler.
The scheduler produces only valid schedules & assigns processors to jobs,; a valid schedule
satisfies the conditions like Every processor is assigned to at most one job at any time, Every
job is assigned at most one processor at any time.No job is scheduled before its release time
etc..

Sneha Sureddy
Real Time Systems Notes Module-1