Process Management in OS

A Program does nothing unless its instructions are executed by a CPU. A program in
execution is called a process. In order to accomplish its task, process needs the computer
resources.

There may exist more than one process in the system which may require the same resource
at the same time. Therefore, the operating system has to manage all the processes and the
resources in a convenient and efficient way.

Some resources may need to be executed by one process at one time to maintain the
consistency otherwise the system can become inconsistent and deadlock may occur.

The operating system is responsible for the following activities in connection with Process
Management

1. Scheduling processes and threads on the CPUs.

2. Creating and deleting both user and system processes.

3. Suspending and resuming processes.

4. Providing mechanisms for process synchronization.

5. Providing mechanisms for process communication.

Attributes of a process
The Attributes of the process are used by the Operating System to create the process
control block (PCB) for each of them. This is also called context of the process.
Attributes which are stored in the PCB are described below.
1. Process ID
When a process is created, a unique id is assigned to the process which is used for unique
identification of the process in the system.

2. Program counter
A program counter stores the address of the last instruction of the process on which the
process was suspended. The CPU uses this address when the execution of this process is
resumed.

3. Process State
The Process, from its creation to the completion, goes through various states which are
new, ready, running and waiting. We will discuss about them later in detail.
4. Priority
Every process has its own priority. The process with the highest priority among the
processes gets the CPU first. This is also stored on the process control block.
5. General Purpose Registers
Every process has its own set of registers which are used to hold the data which is
generated during the execution of the process.
6. List of open files
During the Execution, Every process uses some files which need to be present in the main
memory. OS also maintains a list of open files in the PCB.
7. List of open devices
OS also maintain the list of all open devices which are used during the execution of the
process.

Process States
State Diagram
The process, from its creation to completion, passes through various states. The minimum
number of states is five.
The names of the states are not standardized although the process may be in one of the
following states during execution.
1. New
A program which is going to be picked up by the OS into the main memory is called a
new process.
2. Ready
Whenever a process is created, it directly enters in the ready state, in which, it waits for
the CPU to be assigned. The OS picks the new processes from the secondary memory and
put all of them in the main memory.
The processes which are ready for the execution and reside in the main memory are called
ready state processes. There can be many processes present in the ready state.
3. Running
One of the processes from the ready state will be chosen by the OS depending upon the
scheduling algorithm. Hence, if we have only one CPU in our system, the number of
running processes for a particular time will always be one. If we have n processors in the
system then we can have n processes running simultaneously.
4. Block or wait
From the Running state, a process can make the transition to the block or wait state
depending upon the scheduling algorithm or the intrinsic behavior of the process.
 When a process waits for a certain resource to be assigned or for the input from the user
then the OS move this process to the block or wait state and assigns the CPU to the other
processes.
5. Completion or termination
When a process finishes its execution, it comes in the termination state. All the context of
the process (Process Control Block) will also be deleted the process will be terminated by
the Operating system.
6. Suspend ready
A process in the ready state, which is moved to secondary memory from the main
memory due to lack of the resources (mainly primary memory) is called in the suspend
ready state.
If the main memory is full and a higher priority process comes for the execution then the
OS have to make the room for the process in the main memory by throwing the lower
priority process out into the secondary memory. The suspend ready processes remain in
the secondary memory until the main memory gets available.
7. Suspend wait
Instead of removing the process from the ready queue, it's better to remove the blocked
process which is waiting for some resources in the main memory. Since it is already
waiting for some resource to get available hence it is better if it waits in the secondary
memory and make room for the higher priority process. These processes complete their
execution once the main memory gets available and their wait is finished.

Operations on the Process

1. Creation
Once the process is created, it will be ready and come into the ready queue (main
memory) and will be ready for the execution.
2. Scheduling
Out of the many processes present in the ready queue, the Operating system chooses one
process and start executing it. Selecting the process which is to be executed next, is
known as scheduling.
3. Execution
Once the process is scheduled for the execution, the processor starts executing it. Process
may come to the blocked or wait state during the execution then in that case the processor
starts executing the other processes.
4. Deletion/killing
Once the purpose of the process gets over then the OS will kill the process. The Context
of the process (PCB) will be deleted and the process gets terminated by the Operating
system.

Process Scheduling in OS (Operating System)

Operating system uses various schedulers for the process scheduling described below.

1. Long term scheduler

Long term scheduler is also known as job scheduler. It chooses the processes from the pool
(secondary memory) and keeps them in the ready queue maintained in the primary
memory.

Long Term scheduler mainly controls the degree of Multiprogramming. The purpose of long
term scheduler is to choose a perfect mix of IO bound and CPU bound processes among the
jobs present in the pool.

If the job scheduler chooses more IO bound processes then all of the jobs may reside in the
blocked state all the time and the CPU will remain idle most of the time. This will reduce the
degree of Multiprogramming. Therefore, the Job of long term scheduler is very critical and
may affect the system for a very long time.

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2. Short term scheduler

Short term scheduler is also known as CPU scheduler. It selects one of the Jobs from the
ready queue and dispatch to the CPU for the execution.

A scheduling algorithm is used to select which job is going to be dispatched for the
execution. The Job of the short term scheduler can be very critical in the sense that if it
selects job whose CPU burst time is very high then all the jobs after that, will have to wait in
the ready queue for a very long time.

This problem is called starvation which may arise if the short term scheduler makes some
mistakes while selecting the job.

3. Medium term scheduler

Medium term scheduler takes care of the swapped out processes.If the running state
processes needs some IO time for the completion then there is a need to change its state
from running to waiting.

Medium term scheduler is used for this purpose. It removes the process from the running
state to make room for the other processes. Such processes are the swapped out processes
and this procedure is called swapping. The medium term scheduler is responsible for
suspending and resuming the processes.

It reduces the degree of multiprogramming. The swapping is necessary to have a perfect mix
of processes in the ready queue.

Process Queues

The Operating system manages various types of queues for each of the process states. The
PCB related to the process is also stored in the queue of the same state. If the Process is
moved from one state to another state then its PCB is also unlinked from the corresponding
queue and added to the other state queue in which the transition is made.
1. Job Queue

In starting, all the processes get stored in the job queue. It is maintained in the secondary
memory. The long term scheduler (Job scheduler) picks some of the jobs and put them in
the primary memory.

2. Ready Queue

Ready queue is maintained in primary memory. The short term scheduler picks the job from
the ready queue and dispatch to the CPU for the execution.

3. Waiting Queue

When the process needs some IO operation in order to complete its execution, OS changes
the state of the process from running to waiting. The context (PCB) associated with the
process gets stored on the waiting queue which will be used by the Processor when the
process finishes the IO.