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Advantages of Batch Systems

Early batch systems had no protection between jobs, allowing one to corrupt others. A solution added memory protection and hardware modes to isolate I/O from user programs. Timers were also added to prevent infinite loops. Later, spooling systems improved performance by reading cards to tape for faster I/O while computing, allowing simultaneous peripheral operations. Multiprogramming further allowed multiple programs in memory concurrently.

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82 views

Advantages of Batch Systems

Early batch systems had no protection between jobs, allowing one to corrupt others. A solution added memory protection and hardware modes to isolate I/O from user programs. Timers were also added to prevent infinite loops. Later, spooling systems improved performance by reading cards to tape for faster I/O while computing, allowing simultaneous peripheral operations. Multiprogramming further allowed multiple programs in memory concurrently.

Uploaded by

sandeepapr
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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1.

Advantages of batch systems

omove much of the work of the operator to the computer


oincreased performance since it was possible for job to start as soon as the
previous job finished
2. Disadvantages
o turn-around time can be large from user standpoint
o more difficult to debug program
o due to lack of protection scheme, one batch job can affect pending jobs
(read too many cards, etc)
o a job could corrupt the monitor, thus affecting pending jobs
o a job could enter an infinite loop

As mentioned above, one of the major shortcomings of early batch systems was that there
was no protection scheme to prevent one job from adversely affecting other jobs.

The solution to this was a simple protection scheme, where certain memory (e.g. where
the monitor resides) were made off-limits to user programs. This prevented user
programs from corrupting the monitor.

To keep user programs from reading too many (or not enough) cards, the hardware was
changed to allow the computer to operate in one of two modes: one for the monitor and
one for the user programs. IO could only be performed in monitor mode, so that IO
requests from the user programs were passed to the monitor. In this way, the monitor
could keep a job from reading past it's on $EOJ card.

To prevent an infinite loop, a timer was added to the system and the $JOB card was
modified so that a maximum execution time for the job was passed to the monitor. The
computer would interrupt the job and return control to the monitor when this time was
exceeded.

Spooling Batch Systems (mid 1960s - late 1970s)


One difficulty with simple batch systems is that the computer still needs to read the the
deck of cards before it can begin to execute the job. This means that the CPU is idle (or
nearly so) during these relatively slow operations.

Since it is faster to read from a magnetic tape than from a deck of cards, it became
common for computer centers to have one or more less powerful computers in addition to
there main computer. The smaller computers were used to read a decks of cards onto a
tape, so that the tape would contain many batch jobs. This tape was then loaded on the
main computer and the jobs on the tape were executed. The output from the jobs would
be written to another tape which would then be removed and loaded on a less powerful
computer to produce any hardcopy or other desired output.
It was a logical extension of the timer idea described above to have a timer that would
only let jobs execute for a short time before interrupting them so that the monitor could
start an IO operation. Since the IO operation could proceed while the CPU was crunching
on a user program, little degradation in performance was noticed.

Since the computer can now perform IO in parallel with computation, it became possible
to have the computer read a deck of cards to a tape, drum or disk and to write out to a
tape printer while it was computing. This process is called SPOOLing: Simultaneous
Peripheral Operation OnLine.

Spooling batch systems were the first and are the simplest of the multiprogramming
systems.

One advantage of spooling batch systems was that the output from jobs was available as
soon as the job completed, rather than only after all jobs in the current cycle were
finished.

Multiprogramming Systems (1960s - present)


As machines with more and more memory became available, it was possible to extend
the idea of multiprogramming (or multiprocessing) as used in spooling batch systems to
create systems that would load several jobs into memory at once and cycle through them
in some order, working on each one for a specified period of time.

--------------------------------------
| Monitor |
| (more like a operating system) |
--------------------------------------
| User program 1 |
--------------------------------------
| User program 2 |
--------------------------------------
| User program 3 |
--------------------------------------
| User program 4 |
--------------------------------------

At this point the monitor is growing to the point where it begins to resemble a modern
operating system. It is responsible for:

 starting user jobs


 spooling operations
 IO for user jobs
 switching between user jobs
 ensuring proper protection while doing the above

As a simple, yet common example, consider a machine that can run two jobs at once.
Further, suppose that one job is IO intensive and that the other is CPU intensive. One way
for the monitor to allocate CPU time between these jobs would be to divide time equally
between them. However, the CPU would be idle much of the time the IO bound process
was executing.

A good solution in this case is to allow the CPU bound process (the background job) to
execute until the IO bound process (the foreground job) needs some CPU time, at which
point the monitor permits it to run. Presumably it will soon need to do some IO and the
monitor can return the CPU to the background job.

Timesharing Systems (1970s - present)


Back in the days of the "bare" computers without any operating system to speak of, the
programmer had complete access to the machine. As hardware and software was
developed to create monitors, simple and spooling batch systems and finally
multiprogrammed systems, the separation between the user and the computer became
more and more pronounced.

Users, and programmers in particular, longed to be able to "get to the machine" without
having to go through the batch process. In the 1970s and especially in the 1980s this
became possible two different ways.

The first involved timesharing or timeslicing. The idea of multiprogramming was


extended to allow for multiple terminals to be connected to the computer, with each in-
use terminal being associated with one or more jobs on the computer. The operating
system is responsible for switching between the jobs, now often called processes, in such
a way that favored user interaction. If the context-switches occurred quickly enough, the
user had the impression that he or she had direct access to the computer.

Interactive processes are given a higher priority so that when IO is requested (e.g. a key
is pressed), the associated process is quickly given control of the CPU so that it can
process it. This is usually done through the use of an interrupt that causes the computer
to realize that an IO event has occurred.

It should be mentioned that there are several different types of time sharing systems. One
type is represented by computers like our VAX/VMS computers and UNIX workstations.
In these computers entire processes are in memory (albeit virtual memory) and the
computer switches between executing code in each of them. In other types of systems,
such as airline reservation systems, a single application may actually do much of the
timesharing between terminals. This way there does not need to be a different running
program associated with each terminal.

Personal Computers
The second way that programmers and users got back at the machine was the advent of
personal computers around 1980. Finally computers became small enough and
inexpensive enough that an individual could own one, and hence have complete access to
it.

Real-Time, Multiprocessor, and Distributed/Networked


Systems
A real-time computer is one that execute programs that are guaranteed to have an upper
bound on tasks that they carry out. Usually it is desired that the upper bound be very
small. Examples included guided missile systems and medical monitoring equipment.
The operating system on real-time computers is severely constrained by the timing
requirements.

Dedicated computers are special purpose computers that are used to perform only one or
more tasks. Often these are real-time computers and include applications such as the
guided missile mentioned above and the computer in modern cars that controls the fuel
injection system.

A multiprocessor computer is one with more than one CPU. The category of
multiprocessor computers can be divided into the following sub-categories:

 shared memory multiprocessors have multiple CPUs, all with access to the
same memory. Communication between the the processors is easy to implement,
but care must be taken so that memory accesses are synchronized.

 distributed memory multiprocessors also have multiple CPUs, but each CPU
has it's own associated memory. Here, memory access synchronization is not a
problem, but communication between the processors is often slow and
complicated.

Related to multiprocessors are the following:

 networked systems consist of multiple computers that are networked together,


usually with a common operating system and shared resources. Users, however,
are aware of the different computers that make up the system.
 distributed systems also consist of multiple computers but differ from networked
systems in that the multiple computers are transparent to the user. Often there are
redundant resources and a sharing of the workload among the different computers,
but this is all transparent to the user.

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