Context switchIn computing, a context switch is the process of storing the state of a process or thread, so that it can be restored and resume execution at a later point, and then restoring a different, previously saved, state. This allows multiple processes to share a single central processing unit (CPU), and is an essential feature of a multiprogramming or multitasking operating system. In a traditional CPU, each process - a program in execution - utilizes the various CPU registers to store data and hold the current state of the running process.
NetWareNetWare is a discontinued computer network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, using the IPX network protocol. The original NetWare product in 1983 supported clients running both CP/M and MS-DOS, ran over a proprietary star network topology and was based on a Novell-built file server using the Motorola 68000 processor.
Minix 3Minix 3 is a small, Unix-like operating system. It is published under a BSD-3-Clause license and is a successor project to the earlier versions, Minix 1 and 2. The project's main goal is for the system to be fault-tolerant by detecting and repairing its faults on the fly, with no user intervention. The main uses of the system are envisaged to be embedded systems and education. Minix 3 supports IA-32 and ARM architecture processors. It can also run on emulators or virtual machines, such as Bochs, VMware Workstation, Microsoft Virtual PC, Oracle VirtualBox, and QEMU.
Loop unrollingLoop unrolling, also known as loop unwinding, is a loop transformation technique that attempts to optimize a program's execution speed at the expense of its size, which is an approach known as space–time tradeoff. The transformation can be undertaken manually by the programmer or by an optimizing compiler. On modern processors, loop unrolling is often counterproductive, as the increased code size can cause more cache misses; cf. Duff's device.
Erlang (programming language)Erlang (ˈɜrlæŋ ) is a general-purpose, concurrent, functional high-level programming language, and a garbage-collected runtime system. The term Erlang is used interchangeably with Erlang/OTP, or Open Telecom Platform (OTP), which consists of the Erlang runtime system, several ready-to-use components (OTP) mainly written in Erlang, and a set of design principles for Erlang programs. The Erlang runtime system is designed for systems with these traits: Distributed Fault-tolerant Soft real-time Highly available, non-stop applications Hot swapping, where code can be changed without stopping a system.
Hardware-based full disk encryptionHardware-based full disk encryption (FDE) is available from many hard disk drive (HDD/SSD) vendors, including: ClevX, Hitachi, Integral Memory, iStorage Limited, Micron, Seagate Technology, Samsung, Toshiba, Viasat UK, Western Digital. The symmetric encryption key is maintained independently from the computer's CPU, thus allowing the complete data store to be encrypted and removing computer memory as a potential attack vector. Hardware-FDE has two major components: the hardware encryptor and the data store.
Windows Vista I/O technologiesWindows Vista introduced a number of new I/O functions to the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems. They are intended to shorten the time taken to boot the system, improve the responsiveness of the system, and improve the reliability of data storage. Vista modifies the behavior of asynchronous I/O operations. With the new asynchronous I/O APIs, a thread, different from the one that issued the I/O request, can be notified when the operation completes.
SpinlockIn software engineering, a spinlock is a lock that causes a thread trying to acquire it to simply wait in a loop ("spin") while repeatedly checking whether the lock is available. Since the thread remains active but is not performing a useful task, the use of such a lock is a kind of busy waiting. Once acquired, spinlocks will usually be held until they are explicitly released, although in some implementations they may be automatically released if the thread being waited on (the one that holds the lock) blocks or "goes to sleep".
Database scalabilityDatabase scalability is the ability of a database to handle changing demands by adding/removing resources. Databases use a host of techniques to cope. The initial history of database scalability was to provide service on ever smaller computers. The first database management systems such as IMS ran on mainframe computers. The second generation, including Ingres, Informix, Sybase, RDB and Oracle emerged on minicomputers. The third generation, including dBase and Oracle (again), ran on personal computers.
