Chapter 4: Threads &

Concurrency

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Outline

 Overview
 Multicore Programming
 Multithreading Models
 Thread Libraries
 Implicit Threading
 Threading Issues
 Operating System Examples

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 Objectives

 Identify the basic components of a thread, and contrast threads

and processes
 Describe the benefits and challenges of designing
multithreaded applications
 Illustrate different approaches to implicit threading including
thread pools, fork-join, and Grand Central Dispatch
 Describe how the Windows and Linux operating systems
represent threads
 Designing multithreaded applications using the Pthreads, Java,
and Windows threading APIs

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 Motivation

 Most modern applications are multithreaded

 Threads run within application
 Multiple tasks with the application can be implemented by
separate threads
• Update display
• Fetch data
• Spell checking
• Answer a network request
 Process creation is heavy-weight while thread creation is
light-weight
 Can simplify code, increase efficiency
 Kernels are generally multithreaded

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 Single and Multithreaded Processes

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 Multithreaded Server Architecture

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 Benefits

 Responsiveness – may allow continued execution if part of

process is blocked, especially important for user interfaces
 Resource Sharing – threads share resources of process to
which they belong, easier than shared memory or message
passing
 Economy (time) – thread creation, communication and context
switching consumes less time.
 Scalability – process can take advantage of multicore
architectures

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 4.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Multicore Programming
 Multicore or multiprocessor systems puts pressure on programmers,
challenges include:
• Dividing activities
• Balance
• Data splitting
• Data dependency
• Testing and debugging
 Parallelism implies a system can perform more than one task
simultaneously
 Concurrency supports more than one task making progress
• Single processor / core, scheduler providing concurrency

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 Concurrency vs. Parallelism
 Concurrent execution on single-core system:

 Parallelism on a multi-core system:

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 4.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Multicore Programming

 Types of parallelism
• Data parallelism – distributes subsets of the same data
across multiple cores, same operation on each
• Task parallelism – distributing threads across cores, each
thread performing unique operation

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 Data and Task Parallelism

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 User Threads and Kernel Threads

 User threads - management done by user-level threads library

 Three primary thread libraries:
• POSIX Pthreads
• Windows threads
• Java threads
 Kernel threads - Supported by the Kernel
 Examples – virtually all general-purpose operating systems, including:
• Windows
• Linux
• Mac OS X
• iOS
• Android

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 User and Kernel Threads

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 Multithreading Models

 Many-to-One
 One-to-One
 Many-to-Many

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 Many-to-One

 Many user-level threads mapped to single kernel thread

 One thread blocking causes all to block
 Multiple threads may not run in parallel on multicore system because
only one may be in kernel at a time
 Few systems currently use this model
 Examples:
• Solaris Green Threads
• GNU Portable Threads

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 One-to-One

 Each user-level thread maps to kernel thread

 Creating a user-level thread creates a kernel thread
 More concurrency than many-to-one
 Number of threads per process sometimes restricted due to overhead
 Examples
• Windows
• Linux

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 Many-to-Many Model
 Allows many user level threads to be mapped to many kernel threads
 Allows the operating system to create a sufficient number of kernel
threads
 Windows with the ThreadFiber package
 Otherwise not very common

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 Two-level Model
 Similar to M:M, except that it allows a user thread to be bound to
kernel thread

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 Thread Libraries

 Thread library provides programmer with API for creating and

managing threads
 Two primary ways of implementing
• Library entirely in user space
 Easier to create, managed by the user entirely
 Many to one model
 Not able to exploit multiprocessor environment
• Kernel-level library supported by the OS
 Thread tables managed by the kernel
 One to one model
 Blocking of a thread doesn’t effect execution

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 Strategies of thread creation

 Synchronous
• Parent creates child threads
• Parent and child can then execute concurrently
• Used in servers and responsive user interfaces

 Asynchronous
• Parent creates child threads
• Parent halts its execution and the created child threads can
execute concurrently.
• Once the child threads complete execution, they exit
• After exiting, the parent thread resumes execution.
• Used when result of various child threads need to be combined.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 4.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Pthreads

 May be provided either as user-level or kernel-level

 A POSIX standard (IEEE 1003.1c) API for thread creation and
synchronization
 Specification, not implementation
 API specifies behavior of the thread library, implementation is up to
development of the library
 Common in UNIX operating systems (Linux & Mac OS X)

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 4.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Pthreads Example

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 Pthreads Example (Cont.)

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 Pthreads Code for Joining 10 Threads

Operating System Concepts – 9 th Edition 4. 21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2013

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 Windows Multithreaded C Program

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 Windows Multithreaded C Program (Cont.)

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 Java Threads

 Java threads are managed by the JVM

 Typically implemented using the threads model provided by underlying
OS
 Java threads may be created by:
• Extending Thread class
• Implementing the Runnable interface

• Standard practice is to implement Runnable interface

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 Java Threads
Implementing Runnable interface:

Creating a thread:

Waiting on a thread:

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 Java Executor Framework

 Rather than explicitly creating threads, Java also allows thread creation
around the Executor interface:

 The Executor is used as follows:

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 Java Executor Framework

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 Java Executor Framework (Cont.)

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 Implicit Threading

 Growing in popularity as numbers of threads increase, program

correctness more difficult with explicit threads
 Creation and management of threads done by compilers and run-time
libraries rather than programmers
 Five methods explored
• Thread Pools
• Fork-Join
• OpenMP
• Grand Central Dispatch
• Intel Threading Building Blocks

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 4.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Thread Pools
 Create a number of threads in a pool where they await work
 Advantages:
• Usually slightly faster to service a request with an existing thread
than create a new thread
• Allows the number of threads in the application(s) to be bound to
the size of the pool
• Separating task to be performed from mechanics of creating task
allows different strategies for running task
 i.e,Tasks could be scheduled to run periodically
 Windows API supports thread pools:

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 4.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Java Thread Pools

 Three factory methods for creating thread pools in Executors class:

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 Java Thread Pools (Cont.)

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 Fork-Join Parallelism

 Multiple threads (tasks) are forked, and then joined.

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 Fork-Join Parallelism

 General algorithm for fork-join strategy:

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 Fork-Join Parallelism

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 Fork-Join Parallelism in Java

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 Fork-Join Parallelism in Java

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 Fork-Join Parallelism in Java

 The ForkJoinTask is an abstract base class

 RecursiveTask and RecursiveAction classes extend
ForkJoinTask
 RecursiveTask returns a result (via the return value from the
compute() method)
 RecursiveAction does not return a result

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 4.41 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 OpenMP

 Set of compiler directives and

an API for C, C++, FORTRAN
 Provides support for parallel
programming in shared-
memory environments
 Identifies parallel regions –
blocks of code that can run in
parallel
#pragma omp parallel
Create as many threads as there
are cores

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 4.42 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
  Run the for loop in parallel

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 Grand Central Dispatch
 Apple technology for macOS and iOS operating systems
 Extensions to C, C++ and Objective-C languages, API, and run-time
library
 Allows identification of parallel sections
 Manages most of the details of threading
 Block is in “^{ }” :

ˆ{ printf("I am a block"); }

 Blocks placed in dispatch queue

• Assigned to available thread in thread pool when removed from
queue

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 4.44 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Grand Central Dispatch
 Two types of dispatch queues:
• serial – blocks removed in FIFO order, queue is per process,
called main queue
 Programmers can create additional serial queues within
program
• concurrent – removed in FIFO order but several may be removed
at a time
 Four system wide queues divided by quality of service:
o QOS_CLASS_USER_INTERACTIVE
o QOS_CLASS_USER_INITIATED
o QOS_CLASS_USER_UTILITY
o QOS_CLASS_USER_BACKGROUND

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 4.45 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Grand Central Dispatch

 For the Swift language a task is defined as a closure – similar to a

block, minus the caret
 Closures are submitted to the queue using the dispatch_async()
function:

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 4.46 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Intel Threading Building Blocks (TBB)

 Template library for designing parallel C++ programs

 A serial version of a simple for loop

 The same for loop written using TBB with parallel_for statement:

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 4.47 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 End of Chapter 4

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018