Operating Systems

Concepts
LECTURE 28 TO 33 – MEMORY MANAGEMENT
Introduction

 The organization and management of the main memory or primary

memory or real memory of a computer system has been one of the
most important factors influencing operating systems design. The
terms memory and storage have been used interchangeably in the
literature. Programs and data must be in main storage in order to be
run or referenced directly. Secondary storage, most commonly disk,
provides massive, inexpensive capacity for the programs and data that
must be kept readily available for processing.
Storage Organization

 The main storage has been viewed as an expensive resource. As such, it has demanded the
attention of systems designers; it has been necessary to squeeze the maximum use out of
this costly resource. OS are concerned with organizing and managing main storage for
optimal use.
 By storage organization we mean the manner in which the main storage is viewed.
 Do we place only a single user several users in it at the same time?
 If several user programs are in main storage at the same time, do we give each of them the same
amount of space, or do we divide main storage into portions, called partitions, of different sizes?
 Do we partition the main storage in a rigid manner with partitions defined for extended periods of
time, or do we provide for a more dynamic partitioning allowing the computer system to adapt
quickly to changes in the needs of user jobs?
 Do we require that user jobs be designed to run in a specific partition, or do we allow jobs to run
anywhere they will fit?
 Do we require that each job be placed in one contiguous block of storage locations, or do we allow
jobs to be parceled up into separate and placed in any available slots in main storage?
 Systems have been built implementing each of these schemes.
Storage Management

 Regardless of what storage organization scheme we adopt for a particular system, we

must decide what strategies to use to obtain optimal performance.
 Storage management strategies determine how a particular storage organization
performs under various policies:
 when do we get a new program to place it in memory? Do we get it when the system
specifically asks for it, or do we attempt to anticipate the system’s requests?
 Where in main storage do we place the next program to be run? Do we place programs as
tightly as possible into available memory slots to minimize wasted space, or do we
place programs as quickly as possible.
 If a new program needs to be placed in main storage and if main storage is currently full,
which of the other programs do we displace? Should we replace the oldest programs, or
should we replace those that are least frequently used, or those that are least recently
used?
 Systems have been implemented using each of these storage management strategies.
Storage Hierarchy

 Main memory
 Should store currently needed program instructions and data only
 Secondary storage
 Stores data and programs that are not actively needed
 Cache memory
 Extremely high speed
 Usually located on processor itself
 Most-commonly-used data copied to cache for faster access
 Small amount of cache still effective for boosting performance
 Due to temporal locality
Storage Hierarchy

Fig: Hierarchical Storage

Organization
Storage Hierarchy

 Programs and data need to be in main storage in order to be executed or referenced. Programs
or data not needed immediately may be kept on secondary storage. Main storage is generally
accessed much faster than secondary storage.
 In systems with several levels of storage, a great deal of shuttling goes on in which programs
and data are move back and forth between the various levels. This shuttling consumes systems
resources such as CPU time.
 In the 1960s it became clear that the storage hierarchy could be extended by one more level
with dramatic improvements in performance and utilization. This additional level, the cache, is a
high-speed storage that is much faster than the main storage. Cache storage is extremely
expensive compared with main storage and therefore only relatively small caches are used. The
following figure shows the relationship between cache, primary storage, and secondary storage.
 Cache storage imposes one more level of shuttling on the system. Programs in the main storage
are shuttled to very high-speed cache before being executed. In the cache, they may be
executed much faster than in main storage. The hope of designers using the cache concept is
that the overhead involved in shuttling programs back and forth will be much smaller than the
performance increase obtained by the faster execution possible in the cache.
STORAGE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES

 Storage management strategies are geared to obtaining the best

possible use of the main storage resource. Storage management
strategies are divided into the following categories.
 Fetch strategies
 Placement strategies
 Replacement strategies
Fetch Strategies

 Fetch strategies are concerned with when to obtain the next piece of
programs or data for insertion into main storage.
 Demand Fetch in which the next piece of program or data is brought in to the main
storage when it is referenced by a running program.
 + Easy to implement
 - Process is un-runnable until block is brought into memory
 Anticipatory Fetching in which OS predicts what blocks a process is likely to refer
to and brings it in memory before it is referenced
 + Process doesn't always need to be suspended that is If 100% correct, process would never
be suspended, an OS would give impression of infinite memory
 - Behavior of process is unpredictable, so OS could pre-load redundant blocks
Placement and Replacement
Strategies

 Placement strategies are concerned with determining where in main storage

to place an incoming program.
 First-Fit
 Best-Fit
 Worst-Fit
 Replacement strategies are concerned with determining which piece of
program or data to displace to make room for incoming programs.
 Optimal
 FIFO
 LRU
 Clock
Contiguous vs Non-Contiguous
Allocation
 Contiguous means together in sequence
 Ways of organizing programs in memory
 Contiguous allocation
 Program must exist as a single block of contiguous addresses
 Sometimes it is impossible to find a large enough block
 Low overhead
 Noncontiguous allocation
 Program divided into chunks called segments or pages
 Each segment/page can be placed in different part of memory
 Easier to find “holes” in which a segment/page will fit
 High overhead but increased number of processes that can exist simultaneously in memory
compensates the overhead incurred by this technique
Single User Contiguous Storage
Allocation
 The earliest computer systems allowed only a single person at a time to use
the machine. All of the machine’s resources were at the user’s disposal. The
following figure illustrates the storage organization for a typical single user
contiguous allocation system.
Protection in Single User Contiguous
Allocation
 Operating system must not be damaged by
programs
 System cannot function if operating system
overwritten
 Boundary register
 Contains address where program’s memory
space begins
 Any memory accesses outside boundary are
denied
 Can only be set by privileged commands
 Applications can access OS memory to
execute OS procedures using system calls,
which places the system in executive mode
FIXED PARTITION
MULTIPROGRAMMING

 To take maximum advantage of multiprogramming, it is necessary for

several jobs to reside in the computer’s main storage at once. Thus
when one job requests i/o the CPU may be immediately switched to
another and may do calculations without delay. When this new job
yields the CPU, another may be ready to use it.
 Multiprogramming often requires more storage than a single user
system.
FIXED PARTITION MULTIPROGRAMMING:
ABSOLUTE TRANSLATION AND LOADING

 In the earliest multiprogramming systems, main storage was divided into

a number of fixed-size partitions. Each partition could hold a single job.
The CPU was switched rapidly between users to create the illusion of
simultaneity.
 Jobs were translated with absolute assemblers and compilers to run only
in a specific partition. If a job was ready to run and its partition was
occupied, then that job had to wait, even if other partitions were available
 This resulted in waste of the storage resource, but the operating system
was relatively straightforward to implement. Any program, no matter how
small, occupies an entire partition. Wasting space inside the partition, this
is called internal fragmentation.
Contd.
FIXED PARTTITION MULTIPROGRAMMING:
RELOCATABLE TRANSLATION AND LOADING.

 Relocating compilers, assemblers, and loaders are used to produce relocatable

programs that can run in any available partition that is large enough to hold
them. This scheme eliminates some of the storage waste inherent in
multiprogramming with absolute translation and loading.
Protection in Fixed Partitioning

 Can be implemented by boundary registers, called base and limit (also

called low and high)
Drawbacks in Fixed Partitions

 Internal fragmentation
 Process does not take up entire partition, wasting memory
 Storage fragmentation occurs in every computer system regardless of its
storage organization. In fixed partition multiprogramming systems,
fragmentation occurs either because user jobs don’t completely fill their
designated partitions or when a partition remains unused if it is too small to
hold a waiting job.
 Potential for processes to be too big to fit anywhere
Contd.

Fig. Internal fragmentation in a fixed-partition multiprogramming system.

Variable Partition Multiprogramming

 System designers found fixed partitions too restrictive

 Internal fragmentation
 Potential for processes to be too big to fit anywhere
 Variable partitions designed as replacement
 Operating systems designers observing the problems with fixed
partition multiprogramming decided that an obvious improvement
would be to allow jobs to occupy as much space (short of the full real
storage) as they needed. No fixed boundaries would be observed.
Variable-Partition Multiprogramming

Figure Initial partition assignments in variable-partition programming.

Variable-Partition Characteristics

 Jobs placed where they fit

 No space wasted initially
 Internal fragmentation impossible
 Partitions are exactly the size they need to be
 External fragmentation can occur when processes removed
 Leave holes too small for new processes
 Eventually no holes large enough for new processes
Variable-Partition Characteristics

Figure Memory “holes” in variable-partition multiprogramming.

 Solutions for External Fragmentation

 Coalescing Holes
 Combine adjacent free blocks into one
large block
 Often not enough to reclaim
significant amount of memory

Figure. Coalescing memory “holes” in variable-partition multiprogramming.

Solutions for External Fragmentation

 Compaction
 Sometimes called garbage collection (not
to be confused with GC in object-oriented
languages)
 Rearranges memory into a single
contiguous block free space and a single
contiguous block of occupied space
 Makes all free space available
 Significant overhead

Figure. Memory compaction in variable-partition multiprogramming.

Solutions for External Fragmentation

 Compaction Drawbacks
 It consumes system resources that could otherwise be used productively.
 The system must stop everything while it performs the compaction. This can
result in erratic response times for interactive users and could be devastating in
real-time systems.
 Compaction involves relocating the jobs that are in storage. This means that
relocation information, must now be maintained in readily accessible form.
 With a normal, rapidly changing job mix, it is necessary to compact frequently.
The consumed system resources might not justify the benefits from compacting.
Memory Placement Strategies

 Where to put incoming processes

 First-fit strategy
 Process placed in first hole of sufficient size found
 Simple, low execution-time overhead
 Best-fit strategy
 Process placed in hole that leaves least unused space around it
 More execution-time overhead
 Worst-fit strategy
 Process placed in hole that leaves most unused space around it
 Leaves another large hole, making it more likely that another process can fit in the hole
Memory Placement Strategies

Figure. First-fit memory placement strategy

Memory Placement Strategies

Figure. Best-fit memory placement strategy

Memory Placement Strategies

Figure. Worst-fit memory placement strategy

Relocation

 When program loaded into memory the actual (absolute) memory locations
are determined
 A process may occupy different partitions which means different absolute
memory locations during execution as a result of may be
 Swapping or
 Compaction
 Hence, there must be an abstraction of addresses that is independent of
main memory (i-e. Logical Addresses)
Addresses

 Logical
 Reference to a memory location independent of the current assignment of data to
memory.
 Relative
 Address expressed as a location relative to some known point.
 Physical or Absolute
 The absolute address or actual location in main memory.
 A translation must be made from both Logical and Relative addresses to arrive
at the Absolute address
 MMU – Memory Management Unit is a hardware component responsible
for translating logical/relative address to physical address
Address Translation in Contiguous
Allocation Schemes
 Base register
 Starting address for the process
 Bounds/Limit register
 Ending location of the process
 These values are set when the process is
loaded or when the process is swapped in
 The value of the base register is added to a
relative address to produce an absolute
address
 The resulting address is compared with the
value in the bounds register
 If the address is not within bounds, an
interrupt (trap) is generated to the operating
system
Simple Paging

 Partition memory into small equal fixed-size chunks and divide each
process into the same size chunks
 The chunks of a process are called pages
 The chunks of memory are called frames
 Can suffer from internal fragmentation but its is comparatively very less
from that caused by fixed partition scheme as page size and frame size
is relatively very small.
Simple Paging

 Operating system maintains a page table for each process

 Contains the frame location for each page in the process
 Logical Memory Address consist of a page number and offset within the page
 Physical Memory Address consists of a frame number and and offset within
the frame
Processes and Frames

A.0
A.1
A.2
A.3
D.0
B.0
D.1
B.1
D.2
B.2
C.0
C.1
C.2
C.3
D.3
D.4
Page Table
Paging – Address Translation

 Page number is mapped with a

frame number by referring the page
table
 The offset remains same as the size
of both frame and page is same.
Simple Segmentation

 A program can be subdivided into segments

 Segments may vary in length
 There is a maximum segment length
 Addressing consist of two parts
 a segment number and
 an offset
 Segmentation is similar to dynamic partitioning
 Segmentation eliminates internal fragmentation but suffers from
external fragmentation (as does dynamic partitioning)
Simple Segmentation

 Operating would make a segment table for each process and a list of
free blocks of main memory. Each segment table entry would have to
give
 the starting address in main memory of the corresponding segment.
 the length of the segment, to assure that invalid addresses are not used.
Segmentation – Address Translation

 s – Segment Number
 d – Offset
 Logical Address = <s,d>
 Offset(d) is compared with the limit/size in
the segment table
 If it is less than the limit then base
corresponding to the segment number
and offset(d) are added to calculate
physical address otherwise an interrupt is
generated to show that the address trying
to be accesses belongs to another
segment
 Physical Address = Base + d
Protection and sharing

 Segmentation lends itself to the implementation of protection and

sharing policies.
 As each entry has a base address and length, inadvertent memory
access can be controlled
 Sharing can be achieved by segments referencing multiple processes
Paging - Logical to Physical Address
Translation
Segmentation – Logical to Physical
Address Translation
Combined Paging and Segmentation

 In a combined paging/segmentation system, a user’s address space is

broken up into a number of segments, at the discretion of the
programmer.
 Each segment is, in turn, broken up into a number of fixed-size pages,
which are equal in length to a main memory frame.
 If a segment has length less than that of a page, the segment occupies
just one page.
 Paging is transparent to the programmer
 Segmentation is visible to the programmer
Thank You!