Modern Operating System (EKT 333/3)

The purpose of this book is to show that the formal specification of kernels is not only possible but also necessary if operating systems are to achieve the levels of reliability and security that is demanded of them today. Specifications of a sequence of kernels of increasing complexity are included, acting as models to enable the designer to identify and reason about the properties of the design thus making explicit that which is too often left implicit or even unknown. A considerable amount of reasoning is included, showing what can be inferred about a design; and in addition, essential properties of data structures and mechanisms are discussed and the properties of these proved. Also included as an essential aspect of the activity, are the interfaces to the hardware and the processes running on them. It is very easy to get bogged down in complexity issues when considering kernels, but this book s prescriptive rather than descriptive approach shows how the kernel of an operating system can affect both the reliability and performance of these systems in a clear and concise style.

This book introduces the fundamental concepts and practicalsimulation techniques for modeling different aspects of operatingsystems to study their general behavior and their performance. Theapproaches applied are object-oriented modeling and the processinteraction approach to simulation. Most other books on performancemodeling use only analytical approaches, and very few apply thesemodeling concepts to the study of operating systems. Thus, the uniquefeature of the book is that it concentrates on the study of operatingsystems using practical simulation techniques. In addition, the bookillustrates the dynamic behavior of operating systems using a richcollection of simulation models. The book does not present thedetailed theory of operating systems which appears in standardtextbooks on the subject. In this respect, this book is a supplementalbook to the standard operating systems textbooks, and it concentrateson the practical aspects of performance modeling with simulation.