Operating Systems - Process Synchronization

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The Process Synchronization is one of the very important topics of Operating Systems. As you know, the Synchronization means to make things happen at the same time. The basic type of synchronization of process is what we called signalling. In the signalling IPC pattern, when one process reaches its signal points, it waits for the other process to reach its signal point. This was implemented by a message received at the signal receiver's signal point and a message send at the signal sender's message point.

Process synchronization is when one process waits for notification of an event that will occur in another process. The other IPC patterns were more complicated versions of signalling, and were all synchronization patterns. In the rendezvous pattern, two processes were each signalling the other (The two processes synchronize, so they are both at specific points in their codes). In the producer-consumer pattern, the producer is repeatedly the consumer (The producer and consumer keep synchronized so that the product does not get too far ahead of the consumer). In the client server pattern, a single consumer (The server) can be signaled by a number of producers (The clients). The client and server synchronize so they can communicate.

The mutual exclusion pattern is also a version of signalling, but it has some important differences. In the mutual exclusion pattern a process must wait for another process to leave its critical section. The event it waits for, is the end of another process's critical section. But it only needs to wait for this event if other process is in its critical section. So, even though mutual exclusion can be constructed as variation of signalling, it is better thought of as a second basic type of synchronization.

In signalling, one process waits for another process to do something (signal an event), and in mutual exclusion, one process waits for another process not be doing something (not be in its cirtical section). Signalling is the most basic form of process co-operation, and mutual exclusion is the most basic form of process competition.

That's all for now friends. From our next post we shall discuss the classical problems of synchronization, those are Bouinded - Buffere Problem, Readers and Writers problems and Dining Philosophers problems one by one. Happy reading :)

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Sai Spandana Kotturi

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