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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] |
Lock (computer Science)
In computer science, a lock or mutex (from mutual exclusion) is a synchronization primitive: a mechanism that enforces limits on access to a resource when there are many threads of execution. A lock is designed to enforce a mutual exclusion concurrency control policy, and with a variety of possible methods there exists multiple unique implementations for different applications. Types Generally, locks are ''advisory locks'', where each thread cooperates by acquiring the lock before accessing the corresponding data. Some systems also implement ''mandatory locks'', where attempting unauthorized access to a locked resource will force an exception in the entity attempting to make the access. The simplest type of lock is a binary semaphore. It provides exclusive access to the locked data. Other schemes also provide shared access for reading data. Other widely implemented access modes are exclusive, intend-to-exclude and intend-to-upgrade. Another way to classify locks is by what hap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ostrich Algorithm
In computer science, the ostrich algorithm is a strategy of ignoring potential problems on the basis that they may be exceedingly rare. It is named after the ostrich effect which is defined as "to stick one's head in the sand and pretend there is no problem". It is used when it is more cost-effective to allow the problem to occur than to attempt its prevention. Use with deadlocks This approach may be used in dealing with deadlocks in concurrent programming if they are believed to be very rare and the cost of detection or prevention is high. For example, if each PC deadlocks once per 10 years, a single reboot may be less painful than the restrictions needed to prevent it. A set of processes is deadlocked if each process in the set is waiting for an event that only another process in the set can cause. Usually the event is the release of a currently held resource and none of the processes can run, release resources, and be awakened. The ostrich algorithm pretends there is no proble ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mutual Exclusion
In computer science, mutual exclusion is a property of concurrency control, which is instituted for the purpose of preventing race conditions. It is the requirement that one thread of execution never enters a critical section while a concurrent thread of execution is already accessing said critical section, which refers to an interval of time during which a thread of execution accesses a shared resource or shared memory. The shared resource is a data object, which two or more concurrent threads are trying to modify (where two concurrent read operations are permitted but, no two concurrent write operations or one read and one write are permitted, since it leads to data inconsistency). Mutual exclusion algorithm ensures that if a process is already performing write operation on a data object ritical sectionno other process/thread is allowed to access/modify the same object until the first process has finished writing upon the data object ritical sectionand released the object ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Serializing Tokens
In computer science, serializing tokens are a concept in concurrency control arising from the ongoing development of DragonFly BSD. According to Matthew Dillon, they are most akin to SPLs, except a token works across multiple CPUs while SPLs only work within a single CPU's domain. Serializing tokens allow programmers to write multiprocessor-safe code without themselves or the lower level subsystems needing to be aware of every single entity that may also be holding the same token. Comparison with mutual exclusion (mutex) Tokens and mutual exclusion (mutex) mechanisms are locks. Unlike mutexes, tokens do not exclude other threads from accessing the resource while they are blocked or asleep. A thread sharing resources with other threads can be stopped and started for a variety of reasons: # Timeslicing: the user space (US) scheduler tries to ensure that all threads get a fair chance to run, so it runs each thread for a brief period of time (a timeslice) and then switches to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Concurrent Computing
Concurrent computing is a form of computing in which several computations are executed '' concurrently''—during overlapping time periods—instead of ''sequentially—''with one completing before the next starts. This is a property of a system—whether a program, computer, or a network—where there is a separate execution point or "thread of control" for each process. A ''concurrent system'' is one where a computation can advance without waiting for all other computations to complete. Concurrent computing is a form of modular programming. In its paradigm an overall computation is factored into subcomputations that may be executed concurrently. Pioneers in the field of concurrent computing include Edsger Dijkstra, Per Brinch Hansen, and C.A.R. Hoare. Introduction The concept of concurrent computing is frequently confused with the related but distinct concept of parallel computing, Pike, Rob (2012-01-11). "Concurrency is not Parallelism". ''Waza conference'', 11 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parallel Computing
Parallel computing is a type of computation in which many calculations or processes are carried out simultaneously. Large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which can then be solved at the same time. There are several different forms of parallel computing: bit-level, instruction-level, data, and task parallelism. Parallelism has long been employed in high-performance computing, but has gained broader interest due to the physical constraints preventing frequency scaling.S.V. Adve ''et al.'' (November 2008)"Parallel Computing Research at Illinois: The UPCRC Agenda" (PDF). Parallel@Illinois, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "The main techniques for these performance benefits—increased clock frequency and smarter but increasingly complex architectures—are now hitting the so-called power wall. The computer industry has accepted that future performance increases must largely come from increasing the number of processors (or cores) on a die, rather tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Distributed Computing
A distributed system is a system whose components are located on different networked computers, which communicate and coordinate their actions by passing messages to one another from any system. Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems. The components of a distributed system interact with one another in order to achieve a common goal. Three significant challenges of distributed systems are: maintaining concurrency of components, overcoming the lack of a global clock, and managing the independent failure of components. When a component of one system fails, the entire system does not fail. Examples of distributed systems vary from SOA-based systems to massively multiplayer online games to peer-to-peer applications. A computer program that runs within a distributed system is called a distributed program, and ''distributed programming'' is the process of writing such programs. There are many different types of implementations for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synchronization (computer Science)
In 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 practical disciplines (includin ..., synchronization refers to one of two distinct but related concepts: synchronization of Process (computer science), processes, and synchronization of Dataset, data. ''Process synchronization'' refers to the idea that multiple processes are to join up or Handshake (computing), handshake at a certain point, in order to reach an agreement or commit to a certain sequence of action. ''Data synchronization'' refers to the idea of keeping multiple copies of a dataset in coherence with one another, or to maintain data integrity. Process synchronization primitives are commonly used to implement data synchronization. The need for synchronization The need for synchronization does not arise merely in multi-processor systems ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lock-free And Wait-free Algorithms
In computer science, an algorithm is called non-blocking if failure or suspension of any thread cannot cause failure or suspension of another thread; for some operations, these algorithms provide a useful alternative to traditional blocking implementations. A non-blocking algorithm is lock-free if there is guaranteed system-wide progress, and wait-free if there is also guaranteed per-thread progress. "Non-blocking" was used as a synonym for "lock-free" in the literature until the introduction of obstruction-freedom in 2003. The word "non-blocking" was traditionally used to describe telecommunications networks that could route a connection through a set of relays "without having to re-arrange existing calls" (see Clos network). Also, if the telephone exchange "is not defective, it can always make the connection" (see nonblocking minimal spanning switch). Motivation The traditional approach to multi-threaded programming is to use locks to synchronize access to shared resou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Non-blocking Synchronization
In computer science, an algorithm is called non-blocking if failure or suspension of any thread cannot cause failure or suspension of another thread; for some operations, these algorithms provide a useful alternative to traditional blocking implementations. A non-blocking algorithm is lock-free if there is guaranteed system-wide progress, and wait-free if there is also guaranteed per-thread progress. "Non-blocking" was used as a synonym for "lock-free" in the literature until the introduction of obstruction-freedom in 2003. The word "non-blocking" was traditionally used to describe telecommunications networks that could route a connection through a set of relays "without having to re-arrange existing calls" (see Clos network). Also, if the telephone exchange "is not defective, it can always make the connection" (see nonblocking minimal spanning switch). Motivation The traditional approach to multi-threaded programming is to use locks to synchronize access to shared resour ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
