Processes

Process Concept (Cont.)

 Process – a program in execution; process execution

must progress in sequential fashion

 Program is passive entity stored on disk (executable

file), process is active
 Program becomes process when executable file
loaded into memory

 One program can be several processes

 Consider multiple users executing the same
program
 Process State

 As a process executes, it changes state

 new: The process is being created
 running: Instructions are being executed
 waiting: The process is waiting for some event to
occur
 ready: The process is waiting to be assigned to a
processor
 terminated: The process has finished execution
Diagram of Process State
 Process Control Block (PCB)
Information associated with each
process
(also called task control block)
 Process state – running, waiting, etc
 Program counter – location of
instruction to next execute
 CPU registers – contents of all
process-centric registers
 CPU scheduling information-
priorities, scheduling queue pointers
 Memory-management information –
memory allocated to the process
 Accounting information – CPU used,
clock time elapsed since start, time
limits
 I/O status information – I/O devices
allocated to process, list of open files
 Process Scheduling

 Maximize CPU use, quickly switch processes onto

CPU for time sharing
 Process scheduler selects among available
processes for next execution on CPU
 Maintains scheduling queues of processes
 Job queue – set of all processes in the system
 Ready queue – set of all processes residing in
main memory, ready and waiting to execute
 Device queues – set of processes waiting for an
I/O device
 Processes migrate among the various queues
 Representation of Process Scheduling

 Queueing diagram represents queues, resources,

flows
 Schedulers
 Short-term scheduler (or CPU scheduler) – selects which
process should be executed next and allocates CPU
 Sometimes the only scheduler in a system
 Short-term scheduler is invoked frequently (milliseconds)
 (must be fast)
 Long-term scheduler (or job scheduler) – selects which
processes should be brought into the ready queue
 Long-term scheduler is invoked infrequently (seconds,
minutes)  (may be slow)
 The long-term scheduler controls the degree of
multiprogramming
 Processes can be described as either:
 I/O-bound process – spends more time doing I/O than
computations, many short CPU bursts
 CPU-bound process – spends more time doing
computations; few very long CPU bursts
 Long-term scheduler strives for good process mix
 Addition of Medium Term Scheduling
 Medium-term scheduler
 Remove process from memory, store on disk,
bring back in from disk to continue execution:
swapping
 Context Switch
 When CPU switches to another process, the
system must save the state of the old process and
load the saved state for the new process via a
context switch
 Context of a process represented in the PCB
 Operations on Processes

 System must provide mechanisms for:

 process creation,
 process termination,
 Process Creation
 Parent process create children processes, which,
in turn create other processes, forming a tree of
processes
 Generally, process identified and managed via a
process identifier (pid)
 Resource sharing options
 Parent and children share all resources
 Children share subset of parent’s resources
 Parent and child share no resources
 Execution options
 Parent and children execute concurrently
 Parent waits until children terminate
 Process Termination
 Process executes last statement and then asks the
operating system to delete it using the exit() system
call.
 Returns status data from child to parent (via
wait())
 Process’ resources are deallocated by operating
system
 Parent may terminate the execution of children
processes using the abort() system call. Some
reasons for doing so:
 Child has exceeded allocated resources
 Task assigned to child is no longer required
 The parent is exiting and the operating systems
does not allow a child to continue if its parent
terminates
 Interprocess Communication
 Processes within a system may be independent or
cooperating

 Cooperating process can affect or be affected by other

processes, including sharing data
 Reasons for cooperating processes:
 Information sharing

 Cooperating processes need interprocess

communication (IPC)
 Two models of IPC
 Shared memory
 Message passing
 Communications Models
(a) Message passing. (b) shared memory.
 Cooperating Processes
 Independent process cannot affect or be affected by
the execution of another process
 Cooperating process can affect or be affected by the
execution of another process
 Advantages of process cooperation
 Information sharing
 Computation speed-up
 Convenience
 CPU Scheduler
 Short-term scheduler selects from among the processes
in ready queue, and allocates the CPU to one of them
 Queue may be ordered in various ways
 CPU scheduling decisions may take place when a
process:
1. Switches from running to waiting state
2. Switches from running to ready state
3. Switches from waiting to ready
4. Terminates
 Scheduling under 1 and 4 is nonpreemptive
 All other scheduling is preemptive
 Consider access to shared data
 Consider preemption while in kernel mode
 Consider interrupts occurring during crucial OS
activities
 Scheduling Criteria

 CPU utilization – keep the CPU as busy as possible

 Throughput – # of processes that complete their
execution per time unit
 Turnaround time – amount of time to execute a
particular process
 Waiting time – amount of time a process has been
waiting in the ready queue
 Response time – amount of time it takes from when
a request was submitted until the first response is
produced, not output (for time-sharing environment)
 Scheduling Algorithm Optimization Criteria

 Max CPU utilization

 Max throughput
 Min turnaround time
 Min waiting time
 Min response time
 First- Come, First-Served (FCFS) Scheduling

Process Burst Time

P1 24
P2 3
P3 3
 Suppose that the processes arrive in the order: P1 , P2 , P3
The Gantt Chart for the schedule is:

P1 P2 P3
0 24 27 30

 Waiting time for P1 = 0; P2 = 24; P3 = 27

 Average waiting time: (0 + 24 + 27)/3 = 17
 FCFS Scheduling (Cont.)
Suppose that the processes arrive in the order:
P2 , P3 , P1
 The Gantt chart for the schedule is:

P2 P3 P1
0 3 6 30

 Waiting time for P1 = 6; P2 = 0; P3 = 3

 Average waiting time: (6 + 0 + 3)/3 = 3
 Much better than previous case
 Convoy effect - short process behind long process
 Consider one CPU-bound and many I/O-bound
processes
 Shortest-Job-First (SJF) Scheduling

 SJF is optimal – gives minimum average waiting

time for a given set of processes
 The difficulty is knowing the length of the next
CPU request
 Example of SJF

ProcessArriva l Time Burst Time

P1 0.0 6
P2 2.0 8
P3 4.0 7
P4 5.0 3

 SJF scheduling chart

P4 P1 P3 P2
0 3 9 16 24

 Average waiting time = (3 + 16 + 9 + 0) / 4 = 7

 Example of Shortest-remaining-time-first

 Now we add the concepts of varying arrival times and

preemption to the analysis
ProcessAarri Arrival TimeTBurst Time
P1 0 8
P2 1 4
P3 2 9
P4 3 5
 Preemptive SJF Gantt Chart

P1 P2 P4 P1 P3
0 1 5 10 17 26

 Average waiting time = [(10-1)+(1-1)+(17-2)+5-3)]/4 = 26/4

= 6.5 msec
 Priority Scheduling

 A priority number (integer) is associated with each

process

 The CPU is allocated to the process with the highest

priority (smallest integer  highest priority)
 Preemptive
 Nonpreemptive

 SJF is priority scheduling where priority is the inverse

of predicted next CPU burst time

 Problem  Starvation – low priority processes may

never execute

 Solution  Aging – as time progresses increase the

priority of the process
 Example of Priority Scheduling

ProcessAarri Burst TimeT Priority

P1 10 3
P2 1 1
P3 2 4
P4 1 5
P5 5 2

 Priority scheduling Gantt Chart

P1 P2 P1 P3 P4
0 1 6 16 18 19

 Average waiting time = 8.2 msec

 Round Robin (RR)

 Each process gets a small unit of CPU time (time

quantum q), usually 10-100 milliseconds. After this
time has elapsed, the process is preempted and
added to the end of the ready queue.
 If there are n processes in the ready queue and the
time quantum is q, then each process gets 1/n of the
CPU time in chunks of at most q time units at once.
No process waits more than (n-1)q time units.
 Timer interrupts every quantum to schedule next
process
 Performance
 q large  FIFO
 q small  q must be large with respect to
context switch, otherwise overhead is too high
 Example of RR with Time Quantum = 4
Process Burst Time
P1 24
P2 3
P3 3
 The Gantt chart is:

P1 P2 P3 P1 P1 P1 P1 P1
0 4 7 10 14 18 22 26 30

 Typically, higher average turnaround than SJF, but

better response
 q should be large
Time Quantum and Context Switch Time
 Multilevel Queue
 Ready queue is partitioned into separate queues, eg:
 foreground (interactive)
 background (batch)
 Process permanently in a given queue
 Each queue has its own scheduling algorithm:
 foreground – RR
 background – FCFS
 Scheduling must be done between the queues:
 Fixed priority scheduling; (i.e., serve all from
foreground then from background). Possibility of
starvation.
 Time slice – each queue gets a certain amount of
CPU time which it can schedule amongst its
processes; i.e., 80% to foreground in RR
 20% to background in FCFS
Multilevel Queue Scheduling
 Multilevel Feedback Queue

 A process can move between the various queues;

aging can be implemented this way
 Multilevel-feedback-queue scheduler defined by the
following parameters:
 number of queues
 scheduling algorithms for each queue
 method used to determine when to upgrade a
process
 method used to determine when to demote a
process
 method used to determine which queue a process
will enter when that process needs service
 Example of Multilevel Feedback Queue

 Three queues:
 Q0 – RR with time quantum 8
milliseconds
 Q1 – RR time quantum 16 milliseconds
 Q2 – FCFS

 Scheduling
 A new job enters queue Q0 which is
served FCFS
 When it gains CPU, job receives 8
milliseconds
 If it does not finish in 8
milliseconds, job is moved to
queue Q1
 At Q1 job is again served FCFS and
receives 16 additional milliseconds
 If it still does not complete, it is
preempted and moved to queue Q2