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Chapter: Embedded and Real Time Systems : Process and Operating Systems

Schduling Policies

A scheduling policy defines how processes are selected for promotion from the ready state to the running state.

SCHDULING POLICIES:

 

A scheduling policy defines how processes are selected for promotion from the ready state to the running state. Every multitasking OS implements some type of scheduling policy. Choosing the right scheduling policy not only ensures that the system will meet all its timing requirements, but it also has a profound influence on the CPU horsepower required to implement the system’s functionality.

 

Schedulability means whether there exists a schedule of execution for the processes in a system that satisfies all their timing requirements. In general, we must construct a schedule to show schedulability, but in some cases we can eliminate some sets of processes as unschedulable using some very simple tests.

 

Utilization is one of the key metrics in evaluating a scheduling policy. Our most basic requirement is that CPU utilization be no more than 100% since we can’t use the CPU more than 100% of the time.

 

When we evaluate the utilization of the CPU, we generally do so over a finite period that covers all possible combinations of process executions. For periodic processes, the length of time that must be considered is the hyperperiod, which is the least-common multiple of the periods of all the processes. (The complete schedule for the least-common multiple of the periods is sometimes called the unrolled schedule.) If we evaluate the hyperperiod, we are sure to have considered all possible combinations of the periodic processes.

 

 

We will see that some types of timing requirements for a set of processes imply that we cannot utilize 100% of the CPU’s execution time on useful work, even ignoring context switching overhead.

 

However, some scheduling policies can deliver higher CPU utilizations than others, even for the same timing requirements.

 

One very simple scheduling policy is known as cyclostatic scheduling or sometimes as Time Division Multiple Access scheduling. As illustrated in Figure 3.5, a cyclostatic schedule is divided into equal-sized time slots over an interval equal to the length of the hyperperiod H. Processes always run in the same time slot.


Two factors affect utilization: the number of time slots used and the fraction of each time slot that is used for useful work. Depending on the deadlines for some of the processes, we may need to leave some time slots empty. And since the time slots are of equal size, some short processes may have time left over in their time slot

 

Another scheduling policy that is slightly more sophisticated is round robin. As illustrated in Figure 3.6, round robin uses the same hyperperiod as does cyclostatic. It also evaluates the processes in order.


But unlike cyclostatic scheduling, if a process does not have any useful work to do, the round-robin scheduler moves on to the next process in order to fill the time slot with useful work. In this example, all three processes execute during the first hyperperiod, but during the second one, P1 has no useful work and is skipped.

 

The processes are always evaluated in the same order. The last time slot in the hyperperiod is left empty; if we have occasional, non-periodic tasks without deadlines, we can execute them in these empty time slots. Round-robin scheduling is often used in hardware such as buses because it is very simple to implement but it provides some amount of flexibility.

 

In addition to utilization, we must also consider scheduling overhead—the execution time required to choose the next execution process, which is incurred in addition to any context switching overhead.


In general, the more sophisticated the scheduling policy, the more CPU time it takes during system operation to implement it. Moreover, we generally achieve higher theoretical CPU utilization by applying more complex scheduling policies with higher overheads.

 

The final decision on a scheduling policy must take into account both theoretical utilization and practical scheduling overhead.


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