Multiprogramming

Multiprogramming is a rudimentary form of parallel processing in which several programs are run at the same time on a uniprocessor. Since there is only one processor , there can be no true simultaneous execution of different programs. Instead, the operating system executes part of one program, then part of another, and so on. To the user it appears that all programs are executing at the same time. Computer multiprogramming is the allocation of a computer system and its resources to more than one concurrent application, job or user ("program" in this nomenclature). Initially, this technology was sought in order to optimize use of a computer system, since time and processing resources were often wasted when a single job waited for human interaction or other data input/output operations. Multiprogramming capability was developed as a feature of operating systems in the late 1950s and came into common use in mainframe computing in the mid- to late 1960s. This followed the development of hardware systems that possessed the requisite circuit logic and instruction sets to facilitate the transfer of control between the operating system and one or more independent applications, users or job streams. The use of multiprogramming was enhanced by the arrival of virtual memory and virtual machine technology, which enabled individual programs to make use of memory and operating system resources as if other concurrently running programs were, for all practical purposes, nonexistent and invisible to them. Multiprogramming should be differentiated from multi-tasking since not all multiprogramming entailsor has the capability for-- "true" multi-tasking. This is the case even though the use of multi-tasking generally implies the use of some multiprogramming methods. In this context, the root word "program" does not necessarily refer to a compiled application, rather, any set of commands submitted for execution by a user or operator. Such could include a script or job control stream and any included calls to macro-instructions, system utilities or application program modules. An entire, interactive, logged-in user session can be thought of as a "program" in this sense. A program generally comprises numerous tasks, a task being a relatively small group of processor instructions which together achieve a definable logical step in the completion of a job or the execution of a continuous-running application program. A task frequently ends with some request requiring the moving of data, a convenient opportunity to allow another program to have system resources, particularly CPU time.

In multiprogramming, concurrent running (sharing of the processor) is achieved when the operating system identifies opportunities to interrupt the handling of one program between tasks (e.g., when it is waiting for input/output) and to transfer process control to another program (application, job or user). To a great extent, the ability of a system to share its resources equitablyor according to certain prioritiesis dependent upon the design of the programs being handled and how frequently they may be interrupted. Multi-tasking eliminates that dependency and expands upon multiprogramming by enabling the operating system supervisor to interrupt programs in the middle of tasks and to transfer processor control so rapidly that each program is now assured a portion of each processing second, making the interruptions imperceptible to most human-interactive applications.

Multitasking
In computing, multitasking is a method with multiple tasks, also known as processes, share common processing resources such as a CPU. In the case of a computer with a single CPU, only one task is said to be running at any point in time, meaning that the CPU is actively executing instructions for that task. Multitasking solves the problem by scheduling which task may be the one running at any given time, and when another waiting task gets a turn. The act of reassigning a CPU from one task to another one is called a context switch. When context switches occur frequently enough the illusion of parallelism is achieved. Even on computers with more than one CPU (called multiprocessor machines), multitasking allows many more tasks to be run than there are CPUs. Operating systems may adopt one of many different scheduling strategies, which generally fall into the following categories:


In multiprogramming systems, the running task keeps running until it performs an operation that requires waiting for an external event (e.g. reading from a tape) or until the computer's scheduler forcibly swaps the running task out of the CPU. Multiprogramming systems are designed to maximize CPU usage. In time-sharing systems, the running task is required to relinquish the CPU, either voluntarily or by an external event such as a hardware interrupt. Time sharing systems are designed to allow several programs to execute apparently simultaneously. The expression 'time sharing' was usually used to designate computers shared by interactive users at terminals, such as IBM's TSO, and VM/CMS

In real-time systems, some waiting tasks are guaranteed to be given the CPU when an external event occurs. Real time systems are designed to control mechanical devices such as industrial robots, which require timely processing.

The term time-sharing is no longer commonly used, having been replaced by simply multitasking, and by the advent of personal computers and workstations rather than shared interactive systems.

Preemptive multitasking/time-sharing
Preemptive multitasking allows the computer system to more reliably guarantee each process a regular "slice" of operating time. It also allows the system to rapidly deal with important external events like incoming data, which might require the immediate attention of one or another process. Operating systems were developed to take advantage of these hardware capabilities and run multiple processes preemptively. For example, preemptive multitasking was implemented in the earliest version of Unix [1] in 1969, and is standard in Unix and Unix-like operating systems, including Linux, Solaris and BSD with its derivatives.

Cooperative multitasking/time-sharing
Early multitasking systems consisted of suites of related applications that voluntarily ceded time to each other. This approach, which was eventually supported by many computer operating systems, is today known as cooperative multitasking. Although it is now rarely used in larger systems, cooperative multitasking was once the scheduling scheme employed by Microsoft Windows (prior to Windows 95 and Windows NT) and Mac OS (prior to Mac OS X) in order to enable the running of multiple applications simultaneously. Because a cooperatively multitasked system relies on each process regularly giving up time to other processes on the system, one poorly designed program can consume all of the CPU time for itself or cause the whole system to hang. In a server environment, this is a hazard that makes the network brittle and fragile. All software must be evaluated and cleared for use in a test environment before being installed on the main server, or the entire network either slows down or comes to a halt when a program on the server misbehaves.

Multithreading
Multithreading computers have hardware support to efficiently execute multiple threads. These are distinguished from multiprocessing systems (such as multi-core systems) in that the threads

have to share the resources of a single core: the computing units, the CPU caches and the translation lookaside buffer (TLB). Where multiprocessing systems include multiple complete processing units, multithreading aims to increase utilization of a single core by leveraging thread-level as well as instruction-level parallelism. As the two techniques are complementary, they are sometimes combined in systems with multiple multithreading CPUs and in CPUs with multiple multithreading cores.

Advantages
1. If a thread gets a lot of cache misses, the other thread(s) can continue, taking advantage of the unused computing resources, which thus can lead to faster overall execution, as these resources would have been idle if only a single thread was executed. 2. If a thread cannot use all the computing resources of the CPU (because instructions depend on each other's result), running another thread permits to not leave these idle. 3. If several threads work on the same set of data, they can actually share their cache, leading to better cache usage or synchronization on its values.

Disadvantages
1. Multiple threads can interfere with each other when sharing hardware resources such as caches or translation lookaside buffers (TLBs). 2. Execution times of a single-thread are not improved but can be degraded, even when only one thread is executing. This is due to slower frequencies and/or additional pipeline stages that are necessary to accommodate thread-switching hardware. 3. Hardware support for multithreading is more visible to software, thus requiring more changes to both application programs and operating systems than Multiprocessing.

Multiprocessing
Multiprocessing is the use of two or more central processing units (CPUs) within a single computer system. The term also refers to the ability of a system to support more than one processor and/or the ability to allocate tasks between them.[1] There are many variations on this basic theme, and the definition of multiprocessing can vary with context, mostly as a function of how CPUs are defined (multiple cores on one die, multiple dies in one package, multiple packages in one system unit, etc.). Multiprocessing sometimes refers to the execution of multiple concurrent software processes in a system as opposed to a single process at any one instant. However, the terms multitasking or multiprogramming are more appropriate to describe this concept, which is implemented mostly in software, whereas multiprocessing is more appropriate to describe the use of multiple

hardware CPUs. A system can be both multiprocessing and multiprogramming, only one of the two, or neither of the two.

Symmetric multiprocessing
In computing, symmetric multiprocessing or SMP involves a multiprocessor computer hardware architecture where two or more identical processors are connected to a single shared main memory and are controlled by a single OS instance. Most common multiprocessor systems today use an SMP architecture. In the case of multi-core processors, the SMP architecture applies to the cores, treating them as separate processors. Processors may be interconnected using buses, crossbar switches or on-chip mesh networks. The bottleneck in the scalability of SMP using buses or crossbar switches is the bandwidth and power consumption of the interconnect among the various processors, the memory, and the disk arrays. Mesh architectures avoid these bottlenecks, and provide nearly linear scalability to much higher processor counts at the sacrifice of programmability

Serious programming challenges remain with this kind of architecture because it requires two distinct modes of programming, one for the CPUs themselves and one for the interconnect between the CPUs. A single programming language would have to be able to not only partition the workload, but also comprehend the memory locality, which is severe in a mesh-based architecture. SMP systems allow any processor to work on any task no matter where the data for that task are located in memory, provided that each task in the system is not in execution on two or more processors at the same time; with proper operating system support, SMP systems can easily move tasks between processors to balance the workload efficiently.

Asymmetric multiprocessing
Asymmetric Multiprocessing, or AMP, was a software stopgap for handling multiple CPUs before Symmetric Multiprocessing, or SMP was available

Multiprocessing means more than one CPU in a computer system. The CPU is the arithmetic and logic engine that executes user applications; an I/O interface such as a GPU, even if it is implemented using an embedded processor, does not constitute a CPU because it does not run the user's application program. With multiple CPUs, more than one user application can run at the same time. All of the CPUs have the same user-mode instruction set, so a running job can be rescheduled from one CPU to another.