1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a system and method for managing resources such as processes or memories in a computer system containing resources and entities that operate the resources.
2. Description of the Related Art
The history of computer systems started with simple single processors and has been developing into small-scale multiprocessor systems containing several processors. The types of multiprocessor systems include the UMA (Uniform Memory Access) type where the access time required for each processor to access each memory is uniform, and the NORMA (No Remote Memory Access) type where each processor can access local memories only. For instance, a common memory multiprocessor system called "Dash" has been disclosed in an article titled "The Stanford Dash Multiprocessor," IEEE COMPUTER, March, 1992. Since conventional operating systems, particularly systems for managing resources such as processes or memories, have still been employing a resource management method using a simple single processor, they have the disadvantage of being unable to perform resource management efficiently on a multiprocessor system. Specifically, with a conventional multi-processor system composed of n processors, each process has the same priority when viewed from any processor. Consequently, each of the n processors attempts to carry out the same process. This permits a single process to be effected by more than one processor. However, because each processor has its own cache memory, each time the same process is executed by more than one processor, the contents of each cache memory must be copied back, which not only makes the processing complicated, but also fails to utilize the locality of each processor.