A Framework For Dynamic CPU Allocation With Proportional Share Schedulers

Applications such as interactive multimedia and web application require real-time computation from the operating system in order to be effective. The growing popularity of these applications has spurred research in the design of large multiprocessor servers that can run a variety of demanding applications. These applications are increasingly hosted on general purpose operating system. The underlying operating system should include a scheduler which satisfies certain requirements such as flexibility and fairness. These requirements can be addressed by means of proportional share resource allocation. Recently, the proportional share allocation problem has received a great deal of attention in the context of operating systems and communication networks. Allocating more CPU than is needed will be wasted, whereas allocating less than is needed will delay the job. The required proportion may change dynamically as the resource requirement of the application changes. Hence, a mechanism is needed to monitor the progress of an application and to dynamically allocate the CPU based on the progress.