|
Resource Starvation
In computer science, resource starvation is a problem encountered in concurrent computing where a process is perpetually denied necessary resources to process its work. Starvation may be caused by errors in a scheduling or mutual exclusion algorithm, but can also be caused by resource leaks, and can be intentionally caused via a denial-of-service attack such as a fork bomb. When starvation is impossible in a concurrent algorithm, the algorithm is called starvation-free, lockout-freed or said to have finite bypass. This property is an instance of liveness, and is one of the two requirements for any mutual exclusion algorithm; the other being correctness. The name "finite bypass" means that any process (concurrent part) of the algorithm is bypassed at most a finite number times before being allowed access to the shared resource. Scheduling Starvation is usually caused by an overly simplistic scheduling algorithm. For example, if a (poorly designed) multi-tasking system always swi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical disciplines (including the design and implementation of Computer architecture, hardware and Computer programming, software). Computer science is generally considered an area of research, academic research and distinct from computer programming. Algorithms and data structures are central to computer science. The theory of computation concerns abstract models of computation and general classes of computational problem, problems that can be solved using them. The fields of cryptography and computer security involve studying the means for secure communication and for preventing Vulnerability (computing), security vulnerabilities. Computer graphics (computer science), Computer graphics and computational geometry address the generation of images. Progr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Multitasking
In computing, multitasking is the concurrent execution of multiple tasks (also known as processes) over a certain period of time. New tasks can interrupt already started ones before they finish, instead of waiting for them to end. As a result, a computer executes segments of multiple tasks in an interleaved manner, while the tasks share common processing resources such as central processing units (CPUs) and main memory. Multitasking automatically interrupts the running program, saving its state (partial results, memory contents and computer register contents) and loading the saved state of another program and transferring control to it. This " context switch" may be initiated at fixed time intervals (pre-emptive multitasking), or the running program may be coded to signal to the supervisory software when it can be interrupted (cooperative multitasking). Multitasking does not require parallel execution of multiple tasks at exactly the same time; instead, it allows more than o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Concurrency (computer Science)
In computer science, concurrency is the ability of different parts or units of a program, algorithm, or problem to be executed out-of-order or in partial order, without affecting the outcome. This allows for parallel execution of the concurrent units, which can significantly improve overall speed of the execution in multi-processor and multi-core systems. In more technical terms, concurrency refers to the decomposability of a program, algorithm, or problem into order-independent or partially-ordered components or units of computation. According to Rob Pike, concurrency is the composition of independently executing computations, and concurrency is not parallelism: concurrency is about dealing with lots of things at once but parallelism is about doing lots of things at once. Concurrency is about structure, parallelism is about execution, concurrency provides a way to structure a solution to solve a problem that may (but not necessarily) be parallelizable. A number of mathema ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dining Philosophers Problem
In computer science, the dining philosophers problem is an example problem often used in concurrent algorithm design to illustrate synchronization issues and techniques for resolving them. It was originally formulated in 1965 by Edsger Dijkstra as a student exam exercise, presented in terms of computers competing for access to tape drive peripherals. Soon after, Tony Hoare gave the problem its present form. Problem statement Five philosophers dine together at the same table. Each philosopher has their own place at the table. There is a fork between each plate. The dish served is a kind of spaghetti which has to be eaten with two forks. Each philosopher can only alternately think and eat. Moreover, a philosopher can only eat their spaghetti when they have both a left and right fork. Thus two forks will only be available when their two nearest neighbors are thinking, not eating. After an individual philosopher finishes eating, they will put down both forks. The problem is how to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aging (scheduling)
In computer science for Operating systems, aging (US English) or ageing is a scheduling technique used to avoid starvation. Fixed priority scheduling is a scheduling discipline, in which tasks queued for utilizing a system resource are assigned a priority each. A task with a high priority is allowed to access a specific system resource before a task with a lower priority is allowed to do the same. A disadvantage of this approach is that tasks assigned with a lower priority may be starved when a large number of high priority tasks are queued. Aging is used to gradually increase the priority of a task, based on its waiting time in the ready queue. Problem In priority-based scheduling algorithms, a major problem is indefinite block, or starvation. A process that is ready to run but waiting for the CPU can be considered blocked. A priority scheduling algorithm can leave some low-priority processes waiting indefinitely. A steady stream of higher-priority processes can prevent a low-p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Critical Section
In concurrent programming, concurrent accesses to shared resources can lead to unexpected or erroneous behavior, so parts of the program where the shared resource is accessed need to be protected in ways that avoid the concurrent access. One way to do so is known as a critical section or critical region. This protected section cannot be entered by more than one process or thread at a time; others are suspended until the first leaves the critical section. Typically, the critical section accesses a shared resource, such as a data structure, a peripheral device, or a network connection, that would not operate correctly in the context of multiple concurrent accesses. Need for critical sections Different codes or processes may consist of the same variable or other resources that need to be read or written but whose results depend on the order in which the actions occur. For example, if a variable is to be read by process A, and process B has to write to the same variable ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deadlock
In concurrent computing, deadlock is any situation in which no member of some group of entities can proceed because each waits for another member, including itself, to take action, such as sending a message or, more commonly, releasing a lock. Deadlocks are a common problem in multiprocessing systems, parallel computing, and distributed systems, because in these contexts systems often use software or hardware locks to arbitrate shared resources and implement process synchronization. In an operating system, a deadlock occurs when a process or thread enters a waiting state because a requested system resource is held by another waiting process, which in turn is waiting for another resource held by another waiting process. If a process remains indefinitely unable to change its state because resources requested by it are being used by another process that itself is waiting, then the system is said to be in a deadlock. In a communications system, deadlocks occur mainly due t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maximum Throughput Scheduling
{{Short description, Procedure for scheduling data packets in a packet switched best-effort network Maximum throughput scheduling is a procedure for scheduling data packets in a packet-switched best-effort network, typically a wireless network, in view to maximize the total throughput of the network, or the system spectral efficiency in a wireless network. This is achieved by giving scheduling priority to the least "expensive" data flows in terms of consumed network resources per transferred amount of information. In advanced packet radio systems, for example the HSDPA 3.5G cellular system, channel-dependent scheduling is used instead of FIFO queuing to take advantage of favourable channel conditions to make best use of available radio conditions. Maximum throughput scheduling may be tempting in this context, especially in simulations where throughput of various schemes are compared. However, maximum throughput scheduling is normally not desirable, and channel-dependent scheduling s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Priority Inversion
In computer science, priority inversion is a scenario in scheduling in which a high priority task is indirectly superseded by a lower priority task effectively inverting the assigned priorities of the tasks. This violates the priority model that high-priority tasks can only be prevented from running by higher-priority tasks. Inversion occurs when there is a resource contention with a low-priority task that is then preempted by a medium-priority task. Formulation Consider two tasks H and L, of high and low priority respectively, either of which can acquire exclusive use of a shared resource R. If H attempts to acquire R after L has acquired it, then H becomes blocked until L relinquishes the resource. Sharing an exclusive-use resource (R in this case) in a well-designed system typically involves L relinquishing R promptly so that H (a higher priority task) does not stay blocked for excessive periods of time. Despite good design, however, it is possible that a third task M of medi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kernel (computer Science)
The kernel is a computer program at the core of a computer's operating system and generally has complete control over everything in the system. It is the portion of the operating system code that is always resident in memory and facilitates interactions between hardware and software components. A full kernel controls all hardware resources (e.g. I/O, memory, cryptography) via device drivers, arbitrates conflicts between processes concerning such resources, and optimizes the utilization of common resources e.g. CPU & cache usage, file systems, and network sockets. On most systems, the kernel is one of the first programs loaded on startup (after the bootloader). It handles the rest of startup as well as memory, peripherals, and input/output (I/O) requests from software, translating them into data-processing instructions for the central processing unit. The critical code of the kernel is usually loaded into a separate area of memory, which is protected from access by applicati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CPU Time
CPU time (or process time) is the amount of time for which a central processing unit (CPU) was used for processing instructions of a computer program or operating system, as opposed to elapsed time, which includes for example, waiting for input/output (I/O) operations or entering low-power (idle) mode. The CPU time is measured in clock ticks or seconds. Often, it is useful to measure CPU time as a percentage of the CPU's capacity, which is called the CPU usage. CPU time and CPU usage have two main uses. The CPU time is used to quantify the overall empirical efficiency of two functionally identical algorithms. For example any sorting algorithm takes an unsorted list and returns a sorted list, and will do so in a deterministic number of steps based for a given input list. However a bubble sort and a merge sort have different running time complexity such that merge sort tends to complete in fewer steps. Without any knowledge of the workings of either algorithm a greater CPU time ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scheduling Algorithm
In computing, scheduling is the action of assigning ''resources'' to perform ''tasks''. The ''resources'' may be processors, network links or expansion cards. The ''tasks'' may be threads, processes or data flows. The scheduling activity is carried out by a process called scheduler. Schedulers are often designed so as to keep all computer resources busy (as in load balancing), allow multiple users to share system resources effectively, or to achieve a target quality-of-service. Scheduling is fundamental to computation itself, and an intrinsic part of the execution model of a computer system; the concept of scheduling makes it possible to have computer multitasking with a single central processing unit (CPU). Goals A scheduler may aim at one or more goals, for example: * maximizing ''throughput'' (the total amount of work completed per time unit); * minimizing '' wait time'' (time from work becoming ready until the first point it begins execution); * minimizing '' latency ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
