Chapter 6: CPU Scheduling

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013
 Chapter 6: CPU Scheduling
 Basic Concepts
 Scheduling Criteria
 Scheduling Algorithms
 Thread Scheduling
 Multiple-Processor Scheduling
 Real-Time CPU Scheduling
 Objectives
 To introduce CPU scheduling, which is the basis for multi-programmed operating
systems
 To describe various CPU-scheduling algorithms
 To discuss evaluation criteria for selecting a CPU-scheduling algorithm for a
particular system
 To examine the scheduling algorithms of several operating systems
 Basic Concepts
 Maximum CPU utilization obtained with
multiprogramming
 CPU burst - The time when the process
is being executed in the CPU, i.e. CPU is
the resource being used by the process
at that time
 I/O burst- The time when the process
requests for I/O and is using I/O as a
resource
 CPU burst distribution is of main concern
 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 non-preemptive (non-blocking)
 All other scheduling is preemptive (blocking)
 Consider access to shared data
 Consider preemption while in kernel mode
 Consider interrupts occurring during crucial OS activities
 Dispatcher
 Dispatcher module gives control of the CPU to the process selected by the
short-term scheduler; this involves:
 switching context
 switching to user mode
 jumping to the proper location in the user program to restart that program
 Dispatch latency – time it takes for the dispatcher to stop one process and
start another running
 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: P , P , P
1 2 3
The Gantt Chart for the schedule is:

P1 P2 P3
0 24 27 30

 Waiting time for P = 0; P = 24; P = 27

1 2 3
 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
 Shortest-Job-First (SJF) Scheduling
 Associate with each process the length of its next CPU burst
 Use these lengths to schedule the process with the shortest time
 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
 Could ask the user
 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
ProcessA arri Arrival TimeT Burst Time
P1 0 8
P2 1 4
P3 2 9
P4 3 5
 Preemptive SJF Gantt Chart

P 1
P 2
P 4
P 1
P 3

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
 Non-preemptive
 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
ProcessA arri Burst TimeT Priority
P1 10 3
P2 1 1
P3 2 4
P4 1 5
P5 5 2

 Priority scheduling Gantt Chart

P 1
P 2
P 1
P 3
P 4

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 compared to context switch time
 q usually 10ms to 100ms, context switch < 10 µsec
Time Quantum and Context Switch Time
Turnaround Time Varies With The Time Quantum

80% of CPU bursts should

be shorter than q
 Multilevel Queue
 Ready queue is partitioned into separate queues, e.g.:
 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 Q
 Thread Scheduling
 Distinction between user-level and kernel-level threads
 When threads supported, threads scheduled, not processes
 Many-to-one and many-to-many models, thread library schedules user-level
threads to run on LWP
 Known as
 (PCS) since scheduling competition is within the process
 Typically done via priority set by programmer
 Kernel thread scheduled onto available CPU is system-contention scope
(SCS) – competition among all threads in system
 Pthread Scheduling
 API allows specifying either PCS or SCS during thread creation
 PTHREAD_SCOPE_PROCESS schedules threads using PCS scheduling
 PTHREAD_SCOPE_SYSTEM schedules threads using SCS scheduling
 Can be limited by OS – Linux and Mac OS X only allow
PTHREAD_SCOPE_SYSTEM
 Pthread Scheduling API
#include <pthread.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#define NUM_THREADS 5
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
int i, scope;
pthread_t tid[NUM THREADS];
pthread_attr_t attr;
/* get the default attributes */
pthread_attr_init(&attr);
/* first inquire on the current scope */
if (pthread_attr_getscope(&attr, &scope) != 0)
fprintf(stderr, "Unable to get scheduling scope\n");
else {
if (scope == PTHREAD_SCOPE_PROCESS)
printf("PTHREAD_SCOPE_PROCESS");
else if (scope == PTHREAD_SCOPE_SYSTEM)
printf("PTHREAD_SCOPE_SYSTEM");
else
fprintf(stderr, "Illegal scope value.\n");
}
 Pthread Scheduling API
/* set the scheduling algorithm to PCS or SCS */
pthread_attr_setscope(&attr, PTHREAD_SCOPE_SYSTEM);
/* create the threads */
for (i = 0; i < NUM_THREADS; i++)
pthread_create(&tid[i],&attr,runner,NULL);
/* now join on each thread */
for (i = 0; i < NUM_THREADS; i++)
pthread_join(tid[i], NULL);
}
/* Each thread will begin control in this function */
void *runner(void *param)
{
/* do some work ... */
pthread_exit(0);
}
 Multiple-Processor Scheduling
 CPU scheduling more complex when multiple CPUs are available
 Homogeneous processors within a multiprocessor
 Asymmetric multiprocessing – only one processor accesses the system data
structures, alleviate the need for data sharing
 Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) – each processor is self-scheduling, all
processes in common ready queue, or each has its own private queue of ready
processes
 Currently, most common
 Processor affinity – process has affinity for processor on which it is currently
running
 soft affinity
 hard affinity
 Variations including processor sets
 Multiple-Processor Scheduling – Load Balancing
 If SMP, need to keep all CPUs loaded for efficiency
 Load balancing attempts to keep workload evenly distributed
 Push migration – periodic task checks load on each processor, and if found
pushes task from overloaded CPU to other CPUs
 Pull migration – idle processors pulls waiting task from busy processor
 Multicore Processors
 Recent trend to place multiple processor cores on same physical chip
 Faster and consumes less power
 Multiple threads per core also growing
 Takes advantage of memory stall to make progress on another thread while
memory retrieve happens
 Real-Time CPU Scheduling
 Can present obvious challenges
 Soft real-time systems – no guarantee as to
when critical real-time process will be
scheduled
 Hard real-time systems – task must be
serviced by its deadline
 Two types of latencies affect performance
1. Interrupt latency – time from arrival of
interrupt to start of routine that services
interrupt
2. Dispatch latency – time for schedule to take
current process off CPU and switch to
another
 Priority-based Scheduling
 For real-time scheduling, scheduler must support preemptive, priority-based
scheduling
 But only guarantees soft real-time
 For hard real-time must also provide ability to meet deadlines
 Processes have new characteristics: periodic ones require CPU at constant
intervals
 Has processing time t, deadline d, period p
 0≤t≤d≤p
 Rate of periodic task is 1/p
 End of Chapter 6

Operating System Concepts – 9th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013