Chapter 3:

Memory Management

Operating System Concepts 5.1 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Chapter 3:
Memory Management

 Basic memory management

 Multiprogramming with variable partitions - swapping
 Virtual memory
 Shared pages
 segmentation

Operating System Concepts 5.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 3.1 Basic memory management

 Memory management is the functionality of an operating

system which handles or manages primary memory.

 Memory management :

 mechanism
 Keep track of memory in use
 Keep track of unused (“free”) memory
 Protect memory space
 Allocate, deallocate space for processes
 Swap processes: memory <–> disk

Operating System Concepts 5.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

  Policies
 Decide when to load each process into
memory
 Decide how much memory space to allocate
each process
 Decide when a process should be removed
from memory

Input queue – collection of processes on the disk that are

waiting to be brought into memory to run the program.

Operating System 5.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Binding of Instructions and Data to Memory

 Address binding of instructions and data to memory addresses

can happen at three different stages:

1. Compile time: compile time binding is used to generate the

absolute code. must recompile code if starting location changes.
2. Load time: Must generate relocatable code if memory location is
not known at compile time.
3. Execution time: Binding delayed until run time if the process can
be moved during its execution from one memory segment to
another.

Operating System Concepts 5.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 3.2 Swapping

 Swapping is a mechanism in which a process can be swapped

temporarily out of main memory to a backing store , and then brought
back into memory for continued execution.

 Backing store – fast disk large enough to accommodate copies of all

memory images for all users;
 Roll out, roll in – swapping variant used for priority-based scheduling
algorithms; lower-priority process is swapped out so higher-priority
process can be loaded and executed.

Operating System Concepts 5.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Schematic View of Swapping

Operating System Concepts 5.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Partitioning

An early method of managing memory

 Pre-virtual memory
 Not used much now

But, it will clarify the later discussion of virtual memory if we

look first at partitioning:
 Virtual Memory has evolved from the partitioning
methods

Operating System Concepts 5.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 A) Fixed Partitioning

 Equal-size partitions

 Any process whose size is less than or equal to the partition size
can be loaded into an available partition.

 The operating system can swap a process out of a partition

 If none are in a ready or running state

Operating System Concepts 5.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Fixed Partitioning Problems

 A program may not fit in a partition.

 Main memory use is inefficient.

Solution – Unequal Size Partitions

Operating System Concepts 5.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 B) Dynamic Partitioning

 Partitions are of variable length and number

 Process is allocated exactly as much memory as required

Dynamic Partitioning Example

 External Fragmentation

Operating System Concepts 5.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Placement Algorithm
 Operating system must decide which free block to allocate to a process

Best-fit algorithm
 Chooses the block that is closest in size to the request

First-fit algorithm
 Scans memory from the beginning and chooses the first available block that is large
enough
 Fastest

Next-fit
 Scans memory from the location of the last placement

Operating System Concepts 5.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Relocation

 The programmer does not know where the program will be

placed in memory when it is executed,

 it may be swapped to disk and return to main memory at a

different location (relocated)

Operating System Concepts 5.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 3.3 Virtual memory

 is a technique that allows the execution of processes

which are not completely available in memory.

 separation of user logical memory from physical memory.

 This separation allows an extremely large virtual memory to

be provided for programmers when only a smaller physical
memory is available.

Operating System Concepts 5.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

  Virtual memory can be implemented via:
 Demand paging
 Demand segmentation

Operating System Concepts 5.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Demand paging

 When we want to execute a process, we swap it into memory.

 Rather than swapping the entire process into memory, however,
we use a lazy swapper called pager.

 When a process is to be swapped in, the pager guesses which

pages will be used before the process is swapped out again.

 Instead of swapping in a whole process, the pager brings only

those necessary pages into memory.

Operating System Concepts 5.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

  Bring a page into memory only when it is needed.
 Less I/O needed
 Less memory needed
 Faster response
 More users

 Divide logical memory into blocks of same size called

pages.

Operating System Concepts 5.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Example of paging

Operating System Concepts 5.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 ADVANTAGES OF DP

 Following are the advantages of Demand Paging

 Large virtual memory.

 More efficient use of memory.
 Unconstrained multiprogramming. There is no limit on
degree of multiprogramming.

Operating System Concepts 5.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 Page Replacement Algorithm

 Page replacement algorithms are the techniques using which

Operating System decides which memory pages to swap out,
write to disk when a page of memory needs to be allocated.

 We’ve the following page replacement algorithm:

Operating System Concepts 5.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

 First In First Out (FIFO) algorithm

 Oldest page in main memory is the one which will be

selected for replacement.

 Easy to implement, keep a list, replace pages from the tail

and add new pages at the head.

Operating System Concepts 5.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

Operating System Concepts 5.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
 Optimal Page algorithm

 An optimal page-replacement algorithm has the lowest page-

fault rate of all algorithms.

 Replace the page that will not be used for the longest period of
time.
 Use the time when a page is to be used.

Operating System Concepts 5.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

Operating System Concepts 5.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
 Least Recently Used (LRU)
algorithm
 Page which has not been used for the longest time in main
memory is the one which will be selected for replacement.

 Easy to implement, keep a list, replace pages by looking back

into time.

Operating System Concepts 5.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

Operating System Concepts 5.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
 Segmentation
 Memory-management scheme that supports user view of
memory.
 A program is a collection of segments. A segment is a logical
unit such as:
 main program,
 procedure,
 function,
 method,
 object,
 local variables, global variables,
 common block,
 stack,
 symbol table, arrays

Operating System Concepts 5.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002

Operating System Concepts 5.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
Operating System Concepts 5.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002
 Assignment 1

 Discuss deadlocks in operating systems

with at least two examples.
 Discuss the functionalities of an
operating system.

Operating System Concepts 5.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2002