Chapter 19: Real-Time

Systems

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Chapter 19: Real-Time Systems

 System Characteristics

 Features of Real-Time Systems

 Implementing Real-Time Operating Systems

 Real-Time CPU Scheduling

 An Example: VxWorks 5.x

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 19.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Objectives
 To explain the timing requirements of real-time systems

 To distinguish between hard and soft real-time systems

 To discuss the defining characteristics of real-time systems

 To describe scheduling algorithms for hard real-time systems

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 19.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Overview of Real-Time Systems
 A real-time system requires that results be produced within a
specified deadline period.

 An embedded system is a computing device that is part of a larger

system (i.e., automobile, airliner).

 A safety-critical system is a real-time system with catastrophic

results in case of failure.

 A hard real-time system guarantees that real-time tasks be completed

within their required deadlines.

 A soft real-time system provides priority of real-time tasks over non

real-time tasks.

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 System Characteristics
 Single purpose

 Small size

 Inexpensively mass-produced

 Specific timing requirements

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 19.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 System-on-a-Chip
 Many real-time systems are designed using system-on-a-chip (SOC)
strategy

 SOC allows the CPU, memory, memory-management unit, and

attached peripheral ports (i.e., USB) to be contained in a single
integrated circuit

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 19.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Bus-Oriented System

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 19.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Features of Real-Time Kernels
 Most real-time systems do not provide the features found in a
standard desktop system

 Reasons include
 Real-time systems are typically single-purpose
 Real-time systems often do not require interfacing with a user
 Features found in a desktop PC require more substantial
hardware that what is typically available in a real-time system

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 19.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Virtual Memory in Real-Time Systems
 Address translation may occur via:

1. Real-addressing mode where programs generate actual addresses

2. Relocation register mode
3. Implementing full virtual memory

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 19.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Address Translation

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 19.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Implementing Real-Time Systems

 In general, real-time operating systems must provide:

1. Preemptive, priority-based scheduling

2. Preemptive kernels

3. Latency must be minimized

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 19.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Minimizing Latency
 Event latency is the amount of time from when an event occurs to
when it is serviced.

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 Interrupt Latency
 Interrupt latency is the period of time from when an interrupt arrives at
the CPU to when it is serviced

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 Dispatch Latency
 Dispatch latency is the amount of time required for the scheduler to
stop one process and start another

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 Real-Time CPU Scheduling
 Periodic processes require the CPU at specified intervals (periods)
 p is the duration of the period
 d is the deadline by when the process must be serviced
 t is the processing time

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 Scheduling of tasks when P2
has a higher priority than P1

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 Rate Montonic Scheduling

 A priority is assigned based on the inverse of its period

 Shorter periods = higher priority;

 Longer periods = lower priority

 P1 is assigned a higher priority than P2.

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 19.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Missed Deadlines with
Rate Monotonic Scheduling

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 Earliest Deadline First Scheduling

 Priorities are assigned according to deadlines:

the earlier the deadline, the higher the priority;

the later the deadline, the lower the priority

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 19.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Proportional Share Scheduling

 T shares are allocated among all processes in the system

 An application receives N shares where N < T

 This ensures each application will receive N / T of the total processor

time

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 19.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Pthread Scheduling

 The Pthread API provides functions for managing real-time threads

 Pthreads defines two scheduling classes for real-time threads:

1. SCHED_FIFO - threads are scheduled using a FCFS strategy with

a FIFO queue. There is no time-slicing for threads of equal priority

2. SCHED_RR - similar to SCHED_FIFO except time-slicing occurs

for threads of equal priority

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 19.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 VxWorks 5.0

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 Wind Microkernel

 The Wind microkernel provides support for the following:

1. Processes and threads

2. Preemptive and non-preemptive round-robin scheduling

3. Manages interrupts (with bounded interrupt and dispatch latency

times)

4. Shared memory and message passing interprocess communication

facilities

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 19.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 End of Chapter 19

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009