OS – CS2013 Version

Operating Systems (OS)

An operating system defines an abstraction of hardware and manages resource sharing among the computer’s users. The topics in this area explain the most basic knowledge of operating systems in the sense of interfacing an operating system to networks, teaching the difference between the kernel and user modes, and developing key approaches to operating system design and implementation. This knowledge area is structured to be complementary to Systems Fundamentals, Networks, Information Assurance, and the Parallel and Distributed Computing knowledge areas. The Systems Fundamentals and Information Assurance knowledge areas are the new ones to include contemporary issues. For example, the Systems Fundamentals includes topics such as performance, virtualization and isolation, and resource allocation and scheduling; Parallel and Distributed Systems knowledge area includes parallelism fundamentals; and Information Assurance includes forensics and security issues in depth.  Many courses in Operating Systems will draw material from across these Knowledge Areas.

OS. Operating Systems (4 Core-Tier1 hours; 11 Core Tier2 hours)

  Core-Tier1 hours Core-Tier2 hours Includes Electives
OS/Overview of Operating Systems 2   N
OS/Operating System Principles 2   N
OS/Concurrency   3 N
OS/Scheduling and Dispatch   3 N
OS/Memory Management   3 N
OS/Security and Protection   2 N
OS/Virtual Machines     Y
OS/Device Management     Y
OS/File Systems     Y
OS/Real Time and Embedded Systems     Y
OS/Fault Tolerance     Y
OS/System Performance Evaluation     Y

 

OS/Overview of Operating Systems

[2 Core-Tier1 hours]

Topics:

  • Role and purpose of the operating system
  • Functionality of a typical operating system
  • Mechanisms to support client-server models, hand-held devices
  • Design issues (efficiency, robustness, flexibility, portability, security, compatibility)
  • Influences of security, networking, multimedia, windowing systems

 

Learning Outcomes:

  1. Explain the objectives and functions of modern operating systems. [Familiarity]
  2. Analyze the tradeoffs inherent in operating system design. [Usage]
  3. Describe the functions of a contemporary operating system with respect to convenience, efficiency, and the ability to evolve. [Familiarity]
  4. Discuss networked, client-server, distributed operating systems and how they differ from single user operating systems. [Familiarity]
  5. Identify potential threats to operating systems and the security features design to guard against them. [Familiarity]

 

OS/Operating System Principles

[2 Core-Tier1 hours]

Topics:

  • Structuring methods (monolithic, layered, modular, micro-kernel models)
  • Abstractions, processes, and resources
  • Concepts of application program interfaces (APIs)
  • The evolution of hardware/software techniques and application needs
  • Device organization
  • Interrupts: methods and implementations
  • Concept of user/system state and protection, transition to kernel mode

 

Learning Outcomes:

  1. Explain the concept of a logical layer. [Familiarity]
  2. Explain the benefits of building abstract layers in hierarchical fashion. [Familiarity]
  3. Describe the value of APIs and middleware. [Assessment]
  4. Describe how computing resources are used by application software and managed by system software. [Familiarity]
  5. Contrast kernel and user mode in an operating system. [Usage]
  6. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using interrupt processing. [Familiarity]
  7. Explain the use of a device list and driver I/O queue. [Familiarity]

 

 

OS/Concurrency

[3 Core-Tier2 hours]

Topics:

  • States and state diagrams (cross reference SF/State and State Machines)
  • Structures (ready list, process control blocks, and so forth)
  • Dispatching and context switching
  • The role of interrupts
  • Managing atomic access to OS objects
  • Implementing synchronization primitives
  • Multiprocessor issues (spin-locks, reentrancy) (cross reference SF/Parallelism)

 

Learning Outcomes:

  1. Describe the need for concurrency within the framework of an operating system. [Familiarity]
  2. Demonstrate the potential run-time problems arising from the concurrent operation of many separate tasks. [Usage]
  3. Summarize the range of mechanisms that can be employed at the operating system level to realize concurrent systems and describe the benefits of each. [Familiarity]
  4. Explain the different states that a task may pass through and the data structures needed to support the management of many tasks. [Familiarity]
  5. Summarize techniques for achieving synchronization in an operating system (e.g., describe how to implement a semaphore using OS primitives). [Familiarity]
  6. Describe reasons for using interrupts, dispatching, and context switching to support concurrency in an operating system. [Familiarity]
  7. Create state and transition diagrams for simple problem domains. [Usage]

 

OS/Scheduling and Dispatch

[3 Core-Tier2 hours]

Topics:

  • Preemptive and non-preemptive scheduling (cross reference SF/Resource Allocation and Scheduling, PD/Parallel Performance)
  • Schedulers and policies (cross reference SF/Resource Allocation and Scheduling, PD/Parallel Performance)
  • Processes and threads (cross reference SF/computational paradigms)
  • Deadlines and real-time issues

 

Learning Outcomes:

  1. Compare and contrast the common algorithms used for both preemptive and non-preemptive scheduling of tasks in operating systems, such as priority, performance comparison, and fair-share schemes. [Usage]
  2. Describe relationships between scheduling algorithms and application domains. [Familiarity]
  3. Discuss the types of processor scheduling such as short-term, medium-term, long-term, and I/O. [Familiarity]
  4. Describe the difference between processes and threads. [Usage]
  5. Compare and contrast static and dynamic approaches to real-time scheduling. [Usage]
  6. Discuss the need for preemption and deadline scheduling. [Familiarity]
  7. Identify ways that the logic embodied in scheduling algorithms are applicable to other domains, such as disk I/O, network scheduling, project scheduling, and problems beyond computing. [Usage]

 

OS/Memory Management

[3 Core-Tier2 hours]

Topics:

  • Review of physical memory and memory management hardware
  • Working sets and thrashing
  • Caching (cross reference AR/Memory System Organization and Architecture)

 

Learning Outcomes:

  1. Explain memory hierarchy and cost-performance trade-offs. [Familiarity]
  2. Summarize the principles of virtual memory as applied to caching and paging. [Familiarity]
  3. Evaluate the trade-offs in terms of memory size (main memory, cache memory, auxiliary memory) and processor speed. [Assessment]
  4. Defend the different ways of allocating memory to tasks, citing the relative merits of each. [Assessment]
  5. Describe the reason for and use of cache memory (performance and proximity, different dimension of how caches complicate isolation and VM abstraction). [Familiarity]
  6. Discuss the concept of thrashing, both in terms of the reasons it occurs and the techniques used to recognize and manage the problem. [Familiarity]

 

OS/Security and Protection

[2 Core-Tier2 hours]

Topics:

  • Overview of system security
  • Policy/mechanism separation
  • Security methods and devices
  • Protection, access control, and authentication
  • Backups

 

Learning Outcomes:

  1. Articulate the need for protection and security in an OS (cross reference IAS/Security Architecture and Systems Administration/Investigating Operating Systems Security for various systems). [Assessment]
  2. Summarize the features and limitations of an operating system used to provide protection and security (cross reference IAS/Security Architecture and Systems Administration). [Familiarity]
  3. Explain the mechanisms available in an OS to control access to resources (cross reference IAS/Security Architecture and Systems Administration/Access Control/Configuring systems to operate securely as an IT system). [Familiarity]
  4. Carry out simple system administration tasks according to a security policy, for example creating accounts, setting permissions, applying patches, and arranging for regular backups (cross reference IAS/Security Architecture and Systems Administration ). [Usage]

 

 

OS/Virtual Machines

[Elective]

Topics:

  • Types of virtualization (including Hardware/Software, OS, Server, Service, Network)
  • Paging and virtual memory
  • Virtual file systems
  • Hypervisors
  • Portable virtualization; emulation vs. isolation
  • Cost of virtualization

 

Learning Outcomes:

  1. Explain the concept of virtual memory and how it is realized in hardware and software. [Familiarity]
  2. Differentiate emulation and isolation. [Familiarity]
  3. Evaluate virtualization trade-offs. [Assessment]
  4. Discuss hypervisors and the need for them in conjunction with different types of hypervisors. [Usage]

 

OS/Device Management

[Elective]

Topics:

  • Characteristics of serial and parallel devices
  • Abstracting device differences
  • Buffering strategies
  • Direct memory access
  • Recovery from failures

 

Learning Outcomes:

  1. Explain the key difference between serial and parallel devices and identify the conditions in which each is appropriate. [Familiarity]
  2. Identify the relationship between the physical hardware and the virtual devices maintained by the operating system. [Usage]
  3. Explain buffering and describe strategies for implementing it. [Familiarity]
  4. Differentiate the mechanisms used in interfacing a range of devices (including hand-held devices, networks, multimedia) to a computer and explain the implications of these for the design of an operating system. [Usage]
  5. Describe the advantages and disadvantages of direct memory access and discuss the circumstances in which its use is warranted. [Usage]
  6. Identify the requirements for failure recovery. [Familiarity]
  7. Implement a simple device driver for a range of possible devices. [Usage]

 

 

OS/File Systems

[Elective]

Topics:

  • Files: data, metadata, operations, organization, buffering, sequential, nonsequential
  • Directories: contents and structure
  • File systems: partitioning, mount/unmount, virtual file systems
  • Standard implementation techniques
  • Memory-mapped files
  • Special-purpose file systems
  • Naming, searching, access, backups
  • Journaling and log-structured file systems

 

Learning Outcomes:

  1. Describe the choices to be made in designing file systems. [Familiarity]
  2. Compare and contrast different approaches to file organization, recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of each. [Usage]
  3. Summarize how hardware developments have led to changes in the priorities for the design and the management of file systems. [Familiarity]
  4. Summarize the use of journaling and how log-structured file systems enhance fault tolerance. [Familiarity]

 

OS/Real Time and Embedded Systems

[Elective]

Topics:

  • Process and task scheduling
  • Memory/disk management requirements in a real-time environment
  • Failures, risks, and recovery
  • Special concerns in real-time systems

 

Learning Outcomes:

  1. Describe what makes a system a real-time system. [Familiarity]
  2. Explain the presence of and describe the characteristics of latency in real-time systems. [Familiarity]
  3. Summarize special concerns that real-time systems present, including risk, and how these concerns are addressed. [Familiarity]

 

OS/Fault Tolerance

[Elective]

Topics:

  • Fundamental concepts: reliable and available systems (cross reference SF/Reliability through Redundancy)
  • Spatial and temporal redundancy (cross reference SF/Reliability through Redundancy)
  • Methods used to implement fault tolerance
  • Examples of OS mechanisms for detection, recovery, restart to implement fault tolerance, use of these techniques for the OS’s own services

 

Learning Outcomes:

  1. Explain the relevance of the terms fault tolerance, reliability, and availability. [Familiarity]
  2. Outline the range of methods for implementing fault tolerance in an operating system. [Familiarity]
  3. Explain how an operating system can continue functioning after a fault occurs. [Familiarity]

 

OS/System Performance Evaluation

[Elective]

Topics:

  • Why system performance needs to be evaluated (cross reference SF/Performance/Figures of performance merit)
  • What is to be evaluated (cross reference SF/Performance/Figures of performance merit)
  • Systems performance policies, e.g., caching, paging, scheduling, memory management, and security
  • Evaluation models: deterministic, analytic, simulation, or implementation-specific
  • How to collect evaluation data (profiling and tracing mechanisms)

 

Learning Outcomes:

  1. Describe the performance measurements used to determine how a system performs. [Familiarity]
  2. Explain the main evaluation models used to evaluate a system. [Familiarity]