Path: utzoo!attcan!ncrcan!hcr!chrisp
From: chrisp@hcr.UUCP (Chris Phillips)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Memory utilization & inter-process contention
Message-ID: <1843@hcr.UUCP>
Date: 24 Aug 89 14:40:49 GMT
References: <3332@blake.acs.washington.edu> <1989Aug22.163100.25540@utzoo.uucp> <9aid02rf4dNn01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> <d0e502oG4d0e01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>
Reply-To: chrisp@spinor.UUCP (Chris Phillips)
Organization: HCR Corporation
	Toronto, Ontario
	Canada
Lines: 29

In article <d0e502oG4d0e01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> mat@amdahl.UUCP writes:
>In article <9aid02rf4dNn01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>, sbf10@uts.amdahl.com (Samuel Fuller) writes:
>> 
>> This type of job scheduling is what IBM's MVS operating system does
>> [...]
>> Is there a happy middle ground?
>[...]
>allocation.  MVS went through an evolution from manual control to
>automated control (SRM - System Resource Manager) which Unix has yet to
>follow.  But even SRM cannot provide a free lunch - it attempts to avoid
>overcommitting resources by shutting off or reducing service to some users
>according to rules that you provide.

Ten years back when I was involved with various parts of MVS(3.6+?) I
believe we could show a 30% cpu load on a 43xx class machine with no
active work. A good portion of this was the SRM. It (the SRM) was also
larger than the UNIX(tm) of that time (1976-1979) (And mostly written
in PL/S II). This is not to say that any form of intelligent resource
management is bad, but rather to emphasize that it will cost. I think
IBM is now providing an AI expert system to generate the parameters
for the SRM. This (at least early in MVS life) used to be nearly a
Black Art. I can imagine an interface based on NeXTStep would be quite
impressive!
-- 
Chris Phillips, Hcr Corp.,1001  "A wise old owl sat in an oak,
130 Bloor St W,Toronto Ontario    The more he heard the less he spoke,
Bell: (416) 922-1937   M5S 1N5   The less he spoke the more he heard,
CIS : 75026,3673       CANADA     Why aren't we all like that wise old bird?"
UUCP: {utzoo,utcsri,ihnp4}!hcr!chrisp         <Traditional childrens verse>