Process Synchronization

Module 6: Process Synchronization

 Background
 The Critical-Section Problem
 Synchronization Hardware
 Semaphores
 Classic Problems of Synchronization
 Monitors
 Synchronization Examples
 Atomic Transactions

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Background

 Concurrent access to shared data may result in data

inconsistency
 Maintaining data consistency requires mechanisms to
ensure the orderly execution of cooperating processes
 Suppose that we wanted to provide a solution to the
consumer-producer problem that fills all the buffers. We
can do so by having an integer count that keeps track of
the number of full buffers. Initially, count is set to 0. It is
incremented by the producer after it produces a new
buffer and is decremented by the consumer after it
consumes a buffer.

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Producer

while (true) {

/* produce an item and put in nextProduced */

while (count == BUFFER_SIZE)
; // do nothing
buffer [in] = nextProduced;
in = (in + 1) % BUFFER_SIZE;
count++;
}

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Consumer

while (true) {
while (count == 0)
; // do nothing
nextConsumed = buffer[out];
out = (out + 1) % BUFFER_SIZE;
count--;

/* consume the item in nextConsumed

}

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Race Condition
 count++ could be implemented as

register1 = count
register1 = register1 + 1
count = register1
 count-- could be implemented as

register2 = count
register2 = register2 - 1
count = register2
 Consider this execution interleaving with “count = 5” initially:
S0: producer execute register1 = count {register1 = 5}
S1: producer execute register1 = register1 + 1 {register1 = 6}
S2: consumer execute register2 = count {register2 = 5}
S3: consumer execute register2 = register2 - 1 {register2 = 4}
S4: producer execute count = register1 {count = 6 }
S5: consumer execute count = register2 {count = 4}

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 General Structure of Typical Process Pi

do
{
Entry Section

Critical Section;

Exit Section

Reminder Section;

}
Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Typical Process Pi

1. Entry Section:
Each process must request permission to enter its critical
section. The section of code implementing this request is said to
be “Entry Section”
2. Critical Section:
The section of code which is shared between 1 or more
processes which may cause Race condition is said to be “Critical
Section”
3. Exit Section:
The critical section is followed by the “Exit section”.
4. Reminder Section:
The remaining code is the “Reminder Section”

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Solution to Critical-Section Problem

1. Mutual Exclusion - If process Pi is executing in its critical section,

then no other processes can be executing in their critical sections
2. Progress - If no process is executing in its critical section and
there exist some processes that wish to enter their critical section,
then the selection of the processes that will enter the critical
section next cannot be postponed indefinitely
3. Bounded Waiting - A bound must exist on the number of times
that other processes are allowed to enter their critical sections
after a process has made a request to enter its critical section and
before that request is granted
Assume that each process executes at a nonzero speed
No assumption concerning relative speed of the N processes

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Synchronization Hardware
 Many systems provide hardware support for critical section
code
 Uniprocessors – could disable interrupts
 Currently running code would execute without
preemption
 Generally too inefficient on multiprocessor systems
 Operating systems using this not broadly scalable
 Modern machines provide special atomic hardware
instructions
 Atomic = non-interruptable
 Either test memory word and set value
 Or swap contents of two memory words

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 TestAndSet Instruction

 Definition:

boolean TestAndSet (boolean *target)

{
boolean rv = *target;
*target = TRUE;
return rv:
}

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Solution using TestAndSet

 Shared boolean variable lock., initialized to false.

 Solution:

while (true) {
while ( TestAndSet (&lock ))
; /* do nothing

// critical section

lock = FALSE;

// remainder section

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Swap Instruction

 Definition:

void Swap (boolean *a, boolean *b)

{
boolean temp = *a;
*a = *b;
*b = temp:
}

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Solution using Swap
 Shared Boolean variable lock initialized to
FALSE; Each process has a local Boolean
variable key.
 Solution: Process-1
while (true)
Process-2:
{ while (true)
key = TRUE; {
while ( key == TRUE) key = TRUE;
Swap (&lock, &key ); while ( key == TRUE)
Swap (&lock, &key );
// critical section

lock = FALSE; // critical section

// remainder section lock = FALSE;

}
// remainder section

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 }

6.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Semaphore
 Synchronization tool that does not require busy waiting.
 Semaphore S – integer variable
 Two standard atomic operations modify S: wait( ) and signal( )
 Originally called P( ) and V( )
 Less complicated
 Can only be accessed via two indivisible (atomic) operations
 wait (S) {
while S <= 0
; // no-op
S--;
}
 signal (S) {
S++;
}

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Semaphore as General Synchronization Tool

 Counting semaphore – integer value can range over an

unrestricted domain
 Binary semaphore – integer value can range only between 0
and 1; can be simpler to implement
 Also known as mutex locks
 Can implement a counting semaphore S as a binary semaphore
 Provides mutual exclusion
 Semaphore S; // initialized to 1
 wait (S);
Critical Section
signal (S);

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Deadlock and Starvation
 Deadlock – two or more processes are waiting indefinitely for an
event that can be caused by only one of the waiting processes
 Let S and Q be two semaphores initialized to 1
P0 P1
wait (S); wait (Q);
wait (Q); wait (S);
. .
. .
. .
signal (S); signal (Q);
signal (Q); signal (S);
 Starvation – indefinite blocking. A process may never be removed
from the semaphore queue in which it is suspended.

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Classical Problems of Synchronization
 Bounded-Buffer Problem
 Readers and Writers Problem
 Dining-Philosophers Problem

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Bounded-Buffer Problem

 N buffers, each can hold one item

 Semaphore mutex initialized to the value 1
 Semaphore full initialized to the value 0
 Semaphore empty initialized to the value N.

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Bounded Buffer Problem (Cont.)
 The structure of the producer process

while (true) {

// produce an item

wait (empty);
wait (mutex);

// add the item to the buffer

signal (mutex);
signal (full);
}

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Bounded Buffer Problem (Cont.)
 The structure of the consumer process

while (true) {
wait (full);
wait (mutex);

// remove an item from buffer

signal (mutex);
signal (empty);

// consume the removed item

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Readers-Writers Problem
 A data set is shared among a number of concurrent processes
 Readers – only read the data set; they do not perform any
updates
 Writers – can both read and write.

 Problem – allow multiple readers to read at the same time. Only

one single writer can access the shared data at the same time.

 Shared Data
 Data set
 Semaphore mutex initialized to 1. (Reader)
 Semaphore wrt initialized to 1. (writer)
 Integer readcount initialized to 0.

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Constraints

Data
R2  Set
( R1)
Allow the reader

Data
W1  Set Writer not allowed
( R1)

Data
W2 , R1  Set
( w1)
R1 & W2 not allowed

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Readers-Writers Problem
 Shared DataData set

 Semaphore mutex initialized to 1. (Reader)

 Semaphore wrt initialized to 1. (writer)

 Integer readcount initialized to 0.

Mutex  To provide mutual exclusion among “readers”.

Wrt  To provide mutual exclusion among “writers”.

Readcount Specific to reader (Indicates the number of

readers in the data set.

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Readers-Writers Problem (Cont.)
 The structure of a writer process

while (true) {
wait (wrt) ;

// writing is performed

signal (wrt) ;
}

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Readers-Writers Problem (Cont.)
 The structure of a reader process

while (true) {
wait (mutex) ;
readcount ++ ;
if (readcount == 1) wait (wrt) ;
signal (mutex)

// reading is performed

wait (mutex) ;
readcount - - ;
if (readcount == 0) signal (wrt) ;
signal (mutex) ;
}

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Problems

1.Two processes p1 and p2 has

statements S1 and S2 to be executed. If
S2 has to be strictly executed only after
execution of S1, how would you satisfy the
condition using wait( ) and Signal( )
operations of Semaphore (S).

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 2. Suppose that the following processes arrive for execution at the
times indicated. Each process will run the listed amount of time. In
answering the questions, use non - preemptive scheduling
Process Arrival Time Burst Time
P1 0.0 8
P2 0.4 4
P3 1.0 1
(i)Calculate the average turnaround time for these processes with
the FCFS scheduling algorithm?
(ii)Calculate the average turnaround time for these processes with
the SJF scheduling algorithm?
(iii)Assume if P1 and P2 waits in the ready queue till 1.0 second will
there be any change in waiting time and Turnaround time?.
Calculate the average turnaround time using FCFS & SJF for
condition (c) & compare both with respect to efficiency.

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Solution

Initialize semaphore s=0;

Code for s1 Code for
s2

s1; wait(s);
signal(s); s2;

signal(s);

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Dining-Philosophers Problem

1 3

5 4

 Shared data
 Bowl of rice (data set)
 Semaphore chopstick [5] initialized to 1

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Constraints
States: 1. Hungry  Eat
2. Eating  Both Sticks needed
3. Thinking  Sticks are free
(i) When a philosopher is Hungry then
he needs to eat, so he check for the L & R Chop sticks,
if both are available “he can eat”
else “he has to wait until both the sticks are available”
(ii) After eating, both the chopsticks are to be released.
(iii) If the philosopher is thinking then both the chopsticks are
made available.

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Dining-Philosophers Problem (Cont.)
 The structure of Philosopher i:

While (true) {

// Hungry
wait ( chopstick[i] );
wait ( chopStick[ (i + 1) % 5] );

// eat

signal ( chopstick[i] );
signal (chopstick[ (i + 1) % 5] );

// think
}

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Deadlock and Starvation
 Deadlock – two or more processes are waiting indefinitely for an
event that can be caused by only one of the waiting processes
 Let S and Q be two semaphores initialized to 1
P0 P1
wait (S); wait (Q);
wait (Q); wait (S);
. .
. .
. .
signal (S); signal (Q);
signal (Q); signal (S);
 Starvation – indefinite blocking. A process may never be removed
from the semaphore queue in which it is suspended.

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Problems with Semaphores
 Correct use of semaphore operations:

 signal (mutex) …. wait (mutex)

 wait (mutex) … wait (mutex)

 Omitting of wait (mutex) or signal (mutex) (or both)

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Monitors
 A high-level abstraction that provides a convenient and effective
mechanism for process synchronization
 Only one process may be active within the monitor at a time

monitor monitor-name
{
// shared variable declarations
procedure P1 (…) { …. }
…

procedure Pn (…) {……}

Initialization code ( ….) { … }

…
}
}

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.35 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Schematic view of a Monitor

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.36 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Condition Variables

 condition x, y;

 Two operations on a condition variable:

 x.wait () – a process that invokes the operation is
suspended.
 x.signal () – resumes one of processes (if any) that
invoked x.wait ()

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.37 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Monitor with Condition Variables

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.38 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Solution to Dining Philosophers

monitor DP
{
enum { THINKING; HUNGRY, EATING) state [5] ;
condition self [5];

void pickup (int i) {

state[i] = HUNGRY;
test(i);
if (state[i] != EATING) self [i].wait;
}

void putdown (int i) {

state[i] = THINKING;
// test left and right neighbors
test((i + 4) % 5);
test((i + 1) % 5);
}

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.39 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Solution to Dining Philosophers (cont)

void test (int i) {

if ( (state[(i + 4) % 5] != EATING) &&
(state[i] == HUNGRY) &&
(state[(i + 1) % 5] != EATING) ) {
state[i] = EATING ;
self[i].signal () ;
}
}

initialization_code() {
for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)
state[i] = THINKING;
}
}

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.40 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Solution to Dining Philosophers (cont)

 Each philosopher I invokes the operations pickup()

and putdown() in the following sequence:

dp.pickup (i)

EAT

dp.putdown (i)

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.41 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Monitor Implementation Using Semaphores

 Variables
semaphore mutex; // (initially = 1)
semaphore next; // (initially = 0)
int next-count = 0;

 Each procedure F will be replaced by

wait(mutex);
…
body of F;

…
if (next-count > 0)
signal(next)
else
signal(mutex);

 Mutual exclusion within a monitor is ensured.

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.42 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Monitor Implementation
 For each condition variable x, we have:

semaphore x-sem; // (initially = 0)

int x-count = 0;

 The operation x.wait can be implemented as:

x-count++;
if (next-count > 0)
signal(next);
else
signal(mutex);
wait(x-sem);
x-count--;

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.43 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Monitor Implementation
 The operation x.signal can be implemented as:

if (x-count > 0) {
next-count++;
signal(x-sem);
wait(next);
next-count--;
}

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.44 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Synchronization Examples
 Solaris
 Windows XP
 Linux
 Pthreads

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.45 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Solaris Synchronization
 Implements a variety of locks to support multitasking,
multithreading (including real-time threads), and multiprocessing
 Uses adaptive mutexes for efficiency when protecting data from
short code segments
 Uses condition variables and readers-writers locks when longer
sections of code need access to data
 Uses turnstiles to order the list of threads waiting to acquire either
an adaptive mutex or reader-writer lock

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.46 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Windows XP Synchronization
 Uses interrupt masks to protect access to global resources on
uniprocessor systems
 Uses spinlocks on multiprocessor systems
 Also provides dispatcher objects which may act as either mutexes
and semaphores
 Dispatcher objects may also provide events
 An event acts much like a condition variable

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.47 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Linux Synchronization
 Linux:
 disables interrupts to implement short critical sections

 Linux provides:
 semaphores
 spin locks

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.48 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Pthreads Synchronization

 Pthreads API is OS-independent

 It provides:
 mutex locks
 condition variables

 Non-portable extensions include:

 read-write locks
 spin locks

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.49 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Atomic Transactions

 System Model
 Log-based Recovery
 Checkpoints
 Concurrent Atomic Transactions

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.50 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 System Model

 Assures that operations happen as a single logical unit of work, in its

entirety, or not at all
 Related to field of database systems
 Challenge is assuring atomicity despite computer system failures
 Transaction - collection of instructions or operations that performs
single logical function
 Here we are concerned with changes to stable storage – disk
 Transaction is series of read and write operations
 Terminated by commit (transaction successful) or abort
(transaction failed) operation
 Aborted transaction must be rolled back to undo any changes it
performed

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.51 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Types of Storage Media

 Volatile storage – information stored here does not survive system

crashes
 Example: main memory, cache
 Nonvolatile storage – Information usually survives crashes
 Example: disk and tape
 Stable storage – Information never lost
 Not actually possible, so approximated via replication or RAID to
devices with independent failure modes

Goal is to assure transaction atomicity where failures cause loss of

information on volatile storage

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.52 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Log-Based Recovery
 Record to stable storage information about all modifications by a
transaction
 Most common is write-ahead logging
 Log on stable storage, each log record describes single
transaction write operation, including
 Transaction name
 Data item name
 Old value
 New value
 <Ti starts> written to log when transaction Ti starts
 <Ti commits> written when Ti commits
 Log entry must reach stable storage before operation on data
occurs

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.53 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Log-Based Recovery Algorithm
 Using the log, system can handle any volatile memory errors
 Undo(Ti) restores value of all data updated by Ti
 Redo(Ti) sets values of all data in transaction Ti to new values
 Undo(Ti) and redo(Ti) must be idempotent
 Multiple executions must have the same result as one
execution
 If system fails, restore state of all updated data via log
 If log contains <Ti starts> without <Ti commits>, undo(Ti)
 If log contains <Ti starts> and <Ti commits>, redo(Ti)

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.54 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Checkpoints
 Log could become long, and recovery could take long
 Checkpoints shorten log and recovery time.
 Checkpoint scheme:
1. Output all log records currently in volatile storage to stable
storage
2. Output all modified data from volatile to stable storage
3. Output a log record <checkpoint> to the log on stable storage
 Now recovery only includes Ti, such that Ti started executing
before the most recent checkpoint, and all transactions after Ti All
other transactions already on stable storage

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.55 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Concurrent Transactions
 Must be equivalent to serial execution – serializability
 Could perform all transactions in critical section
 Inefficient, too restrictive
 Concurrency-control algorithms provide serializability

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.56 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Serializability
 Consider two data items A and B
 Consider Transactions T0 and T1
 Execute T0, T1 atomically
 Execution sequence called schedule
 Atomically executed transaction order called serial schedule
 For N transactions, there are N! valid serial schedules

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.57 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Schedule 1: T0 then T1

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.58 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Nonserial Schedule
 Nonserial schedule allows overlapped execute
 Resulting execution not necessarily incorrect
 Consider schedule S, operations Oi, Oj
 Conflict if access same data item, with at least one write
 If Oi, Oj consecutive and operations of different transactions & Oi
and Oj don’t conflict
 Then S’ with swapped order Oj Oi equivalent to S
 If S can become S’ via swapping nonconflicting operations
 S is conflict serializable

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.59 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Schedule 2: Concurrent Serializable Schedule

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.60 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Locking Protocol

 Ensure serializability by associating lock with each data item

 Follow locking protocol for access control
 Locks
 Shared – Ti has shared-mode lock (S) on item Q, Ti can read Q
but not write Q
 Exclusive – Ti has exclusive-mode lock (X) on Q, Ti can read
and write Q
 Require every transaction on item Q acquire appropriate lock
 If lock already held, new request may have to wait
 Similar to readers-writers algorithm

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.61 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Two-phase Locking Protocol
 Generally ensures conflict serializability
 Each transaction issues lock and unlock requests in two phases
 Growing – obtaining locks
 Shrinking – releasing locks
 Does not prevent deadlock

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.62 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Timestamp-based Protocols
 Select order among transactions in advance – timestamp-ordering
 Transaction Ti associated with timestamp TS(Ti) before Ti starts
 TS(Ti) < TS(Tj) if Ti entered system before Tj
 TS can be generated from system clock or as logical counter
incremented at each entry of transaction
 Timestamps determine serializability order
 If TS(Ti) < TS(Tj), system must ensure produced schedule
equivalent to serial schedule where Ti appears before Tj

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.63 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Timestamp-based Protocol Implementation

 Data item Q gets two timestamps

 W-timestamp(Q) – largest timestamp of any transaction that
executed write(Q) successfully
 R-timestamp(Q) – largest timestamp of successful read(Q)
 Updated whenever read(Q) or write(Q) executed
 Timestamp-ordering protocol assures any conflicting read and write
executed in timestamp order
 Suppose Ti executes read(Q)
 If TS(Ti) < W-timestamp(Q), Ti needs to read value of Q that
was already overwritten
 read operation rejected and Ti rolled back
 If TS(Ti) ≥ W-timestamp(Q)
 read executed, R-timestamp(Q) set to max(R-timestamp(Q),
TS(Ti))

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.64 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Timestamp-ordering Protocol
 Suppose Ti executes write(Q)
 If TS(Ti) < R-timestamp(Q), value Q produced by Ti was
needed previously and Ti assumed it would never be produced
 Write operation rejected, Ti rolled back
 If TS(Ti) < W-tiimestamp(Q), Ti attempting to write obsolete
value of Q
 Write operation rejected and Ti rolled back
 Otherwise, write executed
 Any rolled back transaction Ti is assigned new timestamp and
restarted
 Algorithm ensures conflict serializability and freedom from deadlock

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.65 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
 Schedule Possible Under Timestamp Protocol

Operating System Concepts – 7th Edition, Feb 8, 2005 6.66 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2005
End of Chapter 6