You know that the operating system is in charge of executing and allocating resources during process execution. It helps processes to work properly and effectively. Certain processes in a computer system don’t get the resources they need, making them wait a long time to run. This happens when higher-priority processes keep taking the resources, leaving the lower-priority ones stuck and unable to proceed. As a result, these processes wait much longer than they should, which slows down the whole system. If you don’t know what starvation is, most people will encounter it due to scheduling algorithms that put certain processes first. In this article, we will talk about aging in operating systems.
Later, we will talk about how we use aging to solve the problem of resource starvation and ensure we eventually give enough resources to every process. Learning about starvation makes understanding the dynamic process scheduling in operating systems clear. The aging technique is important for promoting fairness and the best performance in resource allocation. Therefore, we will look into starvation and the techniques used to manage it in operating systems.
What is Starvation Operating System?
When a process can’t obtain the resources needed to complete an operation, it is said to starve. Indefinite blocking (i.e., starvation) is also known as blocking. The Priority Scheduling Algorithm frequently suffers from this problem. A process is ready to run on a CPU but is waiting or holding for too long because it has a low priority. This poor performance results in prolonged wait time for processes, poor performance, and lower system throughput.
We use various scheduling methods to prevent starvation. For example, in aging, processes’ priorities increase gradually with time. This ensures that every process gets its fair share of resources dedicated.
Causes and Solution
In an operating system, some processes can starve if they don’t get the resources they need to run because the higher-priority processes continually grab them. In doing so, lower-priority processes can wait endlessly, as they aren’t actively interacting with anything. Moreover, when resources are allocated randomly, some processes will wait too long without getting selected. Poor decisions in allocating resources among processes may cause some of them to starve if there aren’t enough resources that all of them can use.
A resource manager that specially allocates resources for handling starvation such that resources are fairly shared among all processes is set up to tackle starvation. Moreover, the random selection of resources for allocation can only worsen starvation. If your priority system already has the aging mechanism as a process waits more time, its priority will automatically grow, and it eventually will get the resources to complete.
Also read: CPU Scheduling in Operating System
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What is Aging in Operating System?
Scheduling technique for preventing starvation in operating systems is Aging in OS. The basic idea is to gradually make processes that have been waiting for a long time to have a higher priority. This makes it more likely they will have the resources they need to act. This way it lowers the likelihood of starvation.
This is when some waiting processes are chosen with higher priority when not being executed. It guarantees that if a long process is waiting, other processes will be allowed to run.
Other scheduling algorithms are used with aging so as to prevent starvations. Therefore, scheduling such as round-robin or priority scheduling. It contributes to equilibrium among short term and long term fairness in process scheduling.
Also Read: OS Interview Questions and Answers
Uses of Aging
Aging is an important concept in the context of operating systems, where we prioritize the process of doing it older. This works especially well in a variety of scheduling algorithms, such as priority and round-robin. Here are some key uses of aging:
- Fair Execution: As it gets older, aging ensures that processes waiting in the queue for a long period of time will have a fair chance to run their processes at the expense of increased priority over time. With this, low-priority processes take less time.
- Prevention of Priority Inversion: Thus, aging helps to prevent priority inversion, a situation in which a lower priority process prevents a higher priority from running. Aging helps higher-priority processes run in a timely manner by simply adjusting priorities.
- Avoiding Starvation: Increasing the processes that have been waiting for a long time gives priority to starvation prevention. By doing this, these processes don’t get denied access to the resources that they need to run these processes, forever repeating the cycle.
- Combination with Scheduling Algorithms: Numerous other methodologies have been used in combination with aging to improve system performance as a whole. It maintains the balance between resource allocation and responsiveness, so none of the processes would be waiting forever.
Difference Between Starvation and Aging Process in OS
Focused on process scheduling and resource allocation, two important concepts related to starvation and aging in operating systems are starvation and aging. However, they are both about how processes are prioritized and executed and are distinct problems and mechanisms. Here’s a comparison:
| Aspect | Starvation | Aging |
| Definition | A situation where a process is perpetually denied the resources it needs to execute due to low priority. | A technique that gradually increases the priority of a process the longer it waits in the queue. |
| Cause | This occurs when higher-priority processes continuously preempt lower-priority ones, preventing them from being executed. | Implemented as a solution to prevent starvation by ensuring lower-priority processes eventually gain higher priority. |
| Effect on Processes | Low-priority processes may never get executed, leading to inefficiency and potential system bottlenecks. | Ensures that even low-priority processes get a fair chance to execute by increasing their priority over time. |
| System Impact | This can lead to resource underutilization and performance issues, as important processes may need more CPU time. | Improves overall system responsiveness and fairness by balancing process execution times. |
| Management Approach | Requires careful resource allocation strategies to avoid high-priority monopolization. | Involves scheduling algorithms that incorporate aging to dynamically adjust process priorities. |
| Example | A low-priority print job may never finish if higher-priority tasks keep coming in. | A low-priority task waiting for an extended period may eventually become high-priority to ensure it runs. |
Also Read: Disk Scheduling Algorithms in OS
Conclusion
Resource starvation and keeping fairness in resource allocation are achieved with the help of aging techniques in operating systems. Aging increases the priority of waiting processes with time by gradually increasing their priority over existing processes. While there are many benefits of aging, we need to be aware of potential overhead, priority inversion, and system characteristics in order to implement it properly. Careful tuning and integration with the overall scheduling policy are required in order to achieve the best performance. Planning to kickstart your tech career? Consider pursuing Hero Vired’s Certificate Program in Application Development offered in collaboration with Microsoft.
What is process management in operating systems?
How do starvation and aging occur in the operating system?
Is aging appropriate to use with real-time systems?
In what way is starvation different from deadlock?
Does aging work for any scheduling algorithm?
Updated on February 18, 2025