Networking sockets with the use of shared memory, Operating System

Assignment Help:

Q. Compare the utilization of networking sockets with the use of shared memory as a mechanism for communicating data between processes on a single computer. What are the merits of each method? When might each one be preferred?

Answer: Utilizing network sockets rather than shared memory for local communication has a number of advantages. The major advantage is that the socket programming interface features a rich set of synchronization features. A process can effortlessly determine when new data has arrived on a socket connection how much data is present and who sent it. Processes are able to block until new data arrives on a socket or they can request that a signal be delivered when data arrives. A socket as well manages separate connections. A process with a socket open for receive is able to accept multiple connections to that socket and will be told when new processes try to connect or when old processes drop their connections.

Shared memory provided none of these features. There is no means for a process to determine whether another process has delivered or else changed data in shared memory other than by going to look at the contents of that memory. It is unfeasible for a process to block and request a wakeup when shared memory is delivered as well as there is no standard mechanism for other processes to establish a shared memory link to an existing process.

Nevertheless shared memory has the advantage that it is extremely much faster than socket communications in many cases. When data is transmit over a socket it is typically copied from memory to memory multiple times. Shared memory updates necessitate no data copies- if one process updates a data structure in shared memory that update is instantaneously visible to all other processes sharing that memory. Sending or else receiving data over a socket requires that a kernel system service call be made to initiate the transfer but shared memory communication can be performed completely in user mode with no transfer of control required.

Socket communication is usually preferred when connection management is significant or when there is a requirement to synchronize the sender and receiver. For instance server processes will typically establish a listening socket to which clients can connect when they want to use that service. Once the socket is conventional individual requests are as well sent using the socket as a result that the server can easily determine when a new request arrives and who it arrived from. In some cases nevertheless shared memory is preferred. Shared memory is frequently a better solution when either large amounts of data are to be transferred or when two processes require random access to a large common data set. In this case nevertheless the communicating processes may still require an extra mechanism in addition to shared memory to achieve synchronization among them. The X Window System a graphical display environment for UNIX is a good illustration of this most graphic requests are sent over sockets however shared memory is offered as an additional transport in special cases where large bitmaps are to be displayed on the screen. In this situation a request to display the bitmap will still be sent over the socket however the bulk data of the bitmap itself will be sent via shared memory.


Related Discussions:- Networking sockets with the use of shared memory

Modern os, importance of Operating system in modern computers. Also explain...

importance of Operating system in modern computers. Also explain various functions & types of operating systems

Define deadlock prevention, Define deadlock prevention. Deadlock preve...

Define deadlock prevention. Deadlock prevention is a set of process for ensuring that at least one of the four essential conditions like mutual exclusion, hold and wait, no pr

Describe why sstf scheduling tends to favour middle cylinder, Q. Describe w...

Q. Describe why SSTF scheduling tends to favour middle cylinders over the innermost and outermost cylinders. Answer: The middle of the disk is the location having the smalles

Define a program that is in execution is known as, Define a program in exec...

Define a program in execution is known as A program in execution is known as a process

List the various file attributes, List the various file attributes. A f...

List the various file attributes. A file has particular other attributes, which vary from one operating system to another, but typically having of these:  Name, identifier, typ

What is direct access, Normal 0 false false false EN-IN...

Normal 0 false false false EN-IN X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

Difference between message passing and shared memory, Problem: a) To en...

Problem: a) To ensure proper operation, the operating system and all the other programs must be protected from any malfunctioning program. Describe a mechanism which is impleme

Designing issues in a network -fault tolerance, Fault tolerance Machine...

Fault tolerance Machine failures, Communication faults, storage device crashes, and decays of storage media should be tolerated by the system to some extent. A fault tolerant s

Explain internal file structure, Internal file structure All disk I/O i...

Internal file structure All disk I/O is performed in units of single block, and all blocks are the similar size. It is unlikely that the physical record size will exactly match

Write Your Message!

Captcha
Free Assignment Quote

Assured A++ Grade

Get guaranteed satisfaction & time on delivery in every assignment order you paid with us! We ensure premium quality solution document along with free turntin report!

All rights reserved! Copyrights ©2019-2020 ExpertsMind IT Educational Pvt Ltd