Advanced Threads and

Concurrency Models
(code don’t need to
remember)
Threads

• Overview
• Multicore Programming
• Multithreading Models
• Thread Libraries
• Implicit Threading
• Threading Issues
• Operating System Examples
Objectives
• To introduce the notion of a thread—a fundamental unit of
CPU utilization that forms the basis of multithreaded
computer systems
• To discuss the APIs for the Pthreads, Windows, and Java
thread libraries
• To explore several strategies that provide implicit threading
• To examine issues related to multithreaded programming
• To cover operating system support for threads in Windows
and Linux
Motivation

• Most modern applications are multithreaded

• Threads run within application
• Multiple tasks with the application can be implemented by
separate threads
• Update display
• Fetch data
• Spell checking
• Answer a network request
• Process creation is heavy-weight while thread creation is
light-weight
• Can simplify code, increase efficiency
• Kernels are generally multithreaded
Multithreaded Server Architecture
Benefits

• Responsiveness – may allow continued execution if part of

process is blocked, especially important for user interfaces
• Resource Sharing – threads share resources of process, easier
than shared memory or message passing
• Economy – cheaper than process creation, thread switching
lower overhead than context switching
• Scalability – process can take advantage of multiprocessor
architectures
 Multicore Programming

• Multicore or multiprocessor systems putting pressure on

programmers, challenges include:
• Dividing activities
• Balance
• Data splitting
• Data dependency
• Testing and debugging
• Parallelism implies a system can perform more than one task
simultaneously
• Concurrency supports more than one task making progress
• Single processor / core, scheduler providing concurrency
 Multicore Programming (Cont.)

• Types of parallelism
• Data parallelism – distributes subsets of the same data across
multiple cores, same operation on each
• Task parallelism – distributing threads across cores, each thread
performing unique operation
• As # of threads grows, so does architectural support for
threading
• CPUs have cores as well as hardware threads
• Consider Oracle SPARC T4 with 8 cores, and 8 hardware threads per
core
 Concurrency vs. Parallelism
 Concurrent execution on single-core system:

 Parallelism on a multi-core system:

Single and Multithreaded Processes
Amdahl’s Law
• Identifies performance gains from adding additional cores to an application
that has both serial and parallel components
• S is serial portion
• N processing cores

• That is, if application is 75% parallel / 25% serial, moving from 1 to 2 cores
results in speedup of 1.6 times
• As N approaches infinity, speedup approaches 1 / S

Serial portion of an application has disproportionate effect on

performance gained by adding additional cores

• But does the law take into account contemporary multicore systems?
 User Threads and Kernel Threads

• User threads - management done by user-level threads library

• Three primary thread libraries:
• POSIX Pthreads
• Windows threads
• Java threads
• Kernel threads - Supported by the Kernel
• Examples – virtually all general purpose operating systems, including:
• Windows
• Solaris
• Linux
• Tru64 UNIX
• Mac OS X
Multithreading Models

• Many-to-One

• One-to-One

• Many-to-Many
Many-to-One

• Many user-level threads mapped to

single kernel thread
• One thread blocking causes all to block
• Multiple threads may not run in
parallel on muticore system because
only one may be in kernel at a time
• Few systems currently use this model
• Examples:
• Solaris Green Threads
• GNU Portable Threads
One-to-One
• Each user-level thread maps to kernel thread
• Creating a user-level thread creates a kernel
thread
• More concurrency than many-to-one
• Number of threads per process sometimes
restricted due to overhead
• Examples
• Windows
• Linux
• Solaris 9 and later
Many-to-Many Model
• Allows many user level threads to be
mapped to many kernel threads
• Allows the operating system to
create a sufficient number of kernel
threads
• Solaris prior to version 9
• Windows with the ThreadFiber
package
Two-level Model
• Similar to M:M, except that it allows a user thread to be
bound to kernel thread
• Examples
• IRIX
• HP-UX
• Tru64 UNIX
• Solaris 8 and earlier
Thread Libraries

• Thread library provides programmer with API for

creating and managing threads

• Two primary ways of implementing

• Library entirely in user space
• Kernel-level library supported by the OS
Pthreads

• May be provided either as user-level or kernel-level

• A POSIX standard (IEEE 1003.1c) API for thread creation and
synchronization
• Specification, not implementation
• API specifies behavior of the thread library, implementation
is up to development of the library
• Common in UNIX operating systems (Solaris, Linux, Mac OS
X)
Implicit Threading

• Growing in popularity as numbers of threads increase,

program correctness more difficult with explicit threads
• Creation and management of threads done by compilers
and run-time libraries rather than programmers
• Three methods explored
• Thread Pools
• OpenMP
• Grand Central Dispatch
• Other methods include Microsoft Threading Building Blocks
(TBB), java.util.concurrent package
Thread Pools
• Create a number of threads in a pool where they await
work
• Advantages:
• Usually slightly faster to service a request with an existing thread
than create a new thread
• Allows the number of threads in the application(s) to be bound to
the size of the pool
• Separating task to be performed from mechanics of creating task
allows different strategies for running task
• i.e.Tasks could be scheduled to run periodically
• Windows API supports thread pools:
OpenMP
• Set of compiler directives and an API
for C, C++, FORTRAN
• Provides support for parallel
programming in shared-memory
environments
• Identifies parallel regions – blocks of
code that can run in parallel
#pragma omp parallel
Create as many threads as there are
cores
#pragma omp parallel for
for(i=0;i<N;i++) {
c[i] = a[i] + b[i];
}
Run for loop in parallel
Grand Central Dispatch

• Apple technology for Mac OS X and iOS operating systems

• Extensions to C, C++ languages, API, and run-time library
• Allows identification of parallel sections
• Manages most of the details of threading
• Block is in “^{ }” - ˆ{ printf("I am a block"); }
• Blocks placed in dispatch queue
• Assigned to available thread in thread pool when removed from
queue
Grand Central Dispatch

• Two types of dispatch queues:

• serial – blocks removed in FIFO order, queue is per process, called
main queue
• Programmers can create additional serial queues within program
• concurrent – removed in FIFO order but several may be removed at a
time
• Three system wide queues with priorities low, default, high
Threading Issues
• Semantics of fork() and exec() system calls
• Signal handling
• Synchronous and asynchronous
• Thread cancellation of target thread
• Asynchronous or deferred
• Thread-local storage
• Scheduler Activations
 Semantics of fork() and exec()

• Does fork()duplicate only the calling thread or all

threads?
• Some UNIXes have two versions of fork
• exec() usually works as normal – replace the running
process including all threads
 Signal Handling
 Signals are used in UNIX systems to notify a process that
a particular event has occurred.
 A signal handler is used to process signals
1. Signal is generated by particular event
2. Signal is delivered to a process
3. Signal is handled by one of two signal handlers:
1. default
2. user-defined
 Every signal has default handler that kernel runs when
handling signal
 User-defined signal handler can override default
 For single-threaded, signal delivered to process
 Signal Handling (Cont.)
 Where should a signal be delivered for multi-threaded?
 Deliver the signal to the thread to which the signal applies
 Deliver the signal to every thread in the process
 Deliver the signal to certain threads in the process
 Assign a specific thread to receive all signals for the process
 Thread Cancellation
• Terminating a thread before it has finished
• Thread to be canceled is target thread
• Two general approaches:
• Asynchronous cancellation terminates the target thread immediately
• Deferred cancellation allows the target thread to periodically check if it
should be cancelled
• Pthread code to create and cancel a thread:
 Thread Cancellation (Cont.)
• Invoking thread cancellation requests cancellation, but actual
cancellation depends on thread state

• If thread has cancellation disabled, cancellation remains

pending until thread enables it
• Default type is deferred
• Cancellation only occurs when thread reaches cancellation point
• I.e. pthread_testcancel()
• Then cleanup handler is invoked
• On Linux systems, thread cancellation is handled through
signals
Thread-Local Storage

• Thread-local storage (TLS) allows each thread to have its

own copy of data
• Useful when you do not have control over the thread
creation process (i.e., when using a thread pool)
• Different from local variables
• Local variables visible only during single function invocation
• TLS visible across function invocations
• Similar to static data
• TLS is unique to each thread
 Scheduler Activations
• Both M:M and Two-level models require
communication to maintain the appropriate
number of kernel threads allocated to the
application
• Typically use an intermediate data structure
between user and kernel threads –
lightweight process (LWP)
• Appears to be a virtual processor on which
process can schedule user thread to run
• Each LWP attached to kernel thread
• How many LWPs to create?
• Scheduler activations provide upcalls - a
communication mechanism from the kernel
to the upcall handler in the thread library
• This communication allows an application to
maintain the correct number kernel threads
 Operating System Examples

• Windows Threads
• Linux Threads
Windows Threads

• Windows implements the Windows API – primary API for

Win 98, Win NT, Win 2000, Win XP, and Win 7
• Implements the one-to-one mapping, kernel-level
• Each thread contains
• A thread id
• Register set representing state of processor
• Separate user and kernel stacks for when thread runs in user mode
or kernel mode
• Private data storage area used by run-time libraries and dynamic
link libraries (DLLs)
• The register set, stacks, and private storage area are known
as the context of the thread
Windows Threads (Cont.)

• The primary data structures of a thread include:

• ETHREAD (executive thread block) – includes pointer to process to
which thread belongs and to KTHREAD, in kernel space
• KTHREAD (kernel thread block) – scheduling and synchronization
info, kernel-mode stack, pointer to TEB, in kernel space
• TEB (thread environment block) – thread id, user-mode stack,
thread-local storage, in user space
Windows Threads Data Structures
Linux Threads
• Linux refers to them as tasks rather than threads
• Thread creation is done through clone() system call
• clone() allows a child task to share the address space of
the parent task (process)
• Flags control behavior

• struct task_struct points to process data structures

(shared or unique)
End