Understanding Concurrency in Architecture: Types and Mechanisms

1. Concurrency • Architecture Types • Tasks • Synchronization • Semaphores • Monitors • Message Passing • Concurrency in Ada • Java Threads

2. Motivations for Studying Concurrency • Many real-world situations involve concurrency • ~80% of software produced • Multiple-core processors are now widely used • Even on PCs • Very useful, but different way of programming

3. Multiprocessor Architecture Types • Late 1950s • 1 general-purpose processor, and • 1+ special-purpose I/O processors • Early 1960s • Multiple complete processors • Program-level concurrency • Mid-1960s • Multiple partial processors • Instruction-level concurrency • Architecture Types • SIMD (Single-Instruction Multiple-Data) • MIMD (Multiple-Instruction Multiple-Data) • Synchronized Independent processors • Unit-level concurrency

4. Categories of Concurrency • A thread • Sequence of program points reached as program runs • Physical concurrency • Multiple independent processors • Multiple threads • Logical concurrency, Quasi-concurrency • Time-sharing of one processor • Software designed as if there were multiple threads • Coroutines • Single thread

5. Tasks • A task or process • A program unit that executes concurrently with other program units • Task differs from a subprogram • May be started implicitly • The program unit that starts it may not be suspended • When a task ends, control may not return to the caller • A heavyweight task • Runs in its own address space • A lightweight task • Runs in the same address space as other tasks • A disjoint task • Is completely independent from any other tasks

6. Task Synchronization • Controls the order in which tasks execute • Two kinds • Cooperation synchronization • A task must wait for another task to complete some activity • E.g., the producer-consumer problem • Competition synchronization • Two or more tasks use shared resource • Usually provided by mutually exclusive access • Synchronized task communication is provided by • Shared nonlocal variables • Parameters • Message passing

7. Task Execution • A scheduler controls task execution • Maps tasks onto available processors • Task Execution States • New – created, but not yet started • Ready - ready to run, but currently not running • No available processor • Running • Blocked – did run, but can't continue now • Waiting for an event • Dead - no longer active

8. Liveness and Deadlock • Liveness • A program unit will eventually continue its execution • No problem in sequential code • In a concurrent environment, liveness can be easily lost • Deadlock • All tasks lose their liveness

9. Concurrency Design and Mechanisms • Design Issues • Competition and cooperation synchronization • Controlling task scheduling • How and when tasks start and end • How and when are tasks created • Mechanisms • Semaphores • Monitors • Message Passing

10. Semaphores • Dijkstra - 1965 • A semaphore • Data structure with a counter and a queue of task descriptors • Two operations • wait • release • Guards access to shared data • Incorrect use of semaphores can cause fatal errors • In cooperation synchronization • E.g., buffer overflow • In competition synchronization • E.g., deadlock

11. Monitors • Ada, Java, C# • The idea • Encapsulate the shared data and its operations to restrict access • A monitor • An abstract data type for shared data • Shared data is not the client units • All accesses are managed by the monitor • Only one task is allowed to access data at a time • If the monitor is busy all other tasks requesting access are waiting in a queue

12. Cooperation Synchronization • Cooperation between processes is still a programming task • Code must guarantee that a shared buffer does not underflow or overflow Program Process SUB1 Monitor B U F F E R Process SUB1 Insert Process SUB1 Remove Process SUB4

13. Evaluation of Monitors • A better way to provide competition synchronization than are semaphores • Semaphores can be used to implement monitors • Monitors can be used to implement semaphores • Cooperation synchronization is similar to semaphores • It has the same problems

14. Message Passing • The idea • task communication is like seeing a doctor • most of the time she waits for you, or • you wait for her • only when you are both ready, you rendezvous • A general concurrency model • Not just for competition synchronization • Can implement semaphores • Can implement monitors

15. Rendezvous • Message passing must • Let a task indicate that it is accepting messages • Remember tasks waiting to have their message accepted • Provide a fair way of choosing the next message • Rendezvous • Message transmission from the sender task to the receiver task

16. Message-Passing in Ada 83 • Tasks have specification and body parts • Like packages • The specification defines the entry points task Task_Example is entry entry_name (Item : in Integer); end Task_Example; • The body describes the actions during a rendezvous • accept clauses correspond to the entry points in the spec accept entry_name (formal parameters) do … end entry_name

17. Message-Passing in Ada 83 (cont.) • The task executes till the accept clause then waits for a message • The sender is suspended during execution of the accept clause, • The parameters of accept can transmit information in either or both directions • Every accept clause has an associated queue to store waiting messages

18. Server and Actor Tasks • A server task • Has only accept clauses • An actor task • Has no accept clause • An actor task can send messages to other tasks • A sender must know the entry name of the receiver, but not vice versa • Asymmetric

19. Graphical Representation of a Rendezvous Task A Body Accept clauses JOB2 Accept clauses JOB1 Accept clauses JOB4 Accept clauses JOB3 B. JOBS3 (Value) Task B Body

20. Concurrency in Ada 95 • Ada 95 has two additional features • Protected objects • A more efficient way of accessing shared data without rendezvous • Asynchronous communication

21. Protected Objects • A protected object is like an abstract data type • Access to a protected object • Either through message passing, • Or through protected subprograms • A protected procedure • provides mutually exclusive read-write access • A protected function • provides concurrent read-only access

22. Asynchronous Communication • Asynchronousselect structures • Two triggering alternatives • The entry clause is triggered when sent a message • The delay clause is triggered when its time limit is reached

23. Evaluation of Ada • Message passing is powerful and general • Protected objects are a better way to provide synchronized shared data • Message passing is a better concurrency model for truly distributed systems

24. Java Threads • The concurrent unit are run() methods in a Thread • run() can be in concurrent execution with other threads • run() is called indirectly, through start() Class MyThread extends Thread public void run () {…} } … Thread thread = new MyThread (); thread.start();

25. Thread Control • Methods in the Thread class control the execution of the thread • yield() • Voluntarily surrenders the processor • sleep() • Blocks the thread • join() • Waits until another thread's run() is completed • setPriority() • Changes the thread's priority

26. Competition Synchronization in Java • Only one of the synchronized methods can run on the same object public synchronized void deposit(int i) {…} public synchronized int fetch() {…} • If another synchronized method is called on the same object it has to wait in a queue • While obj.deposit()runs, obj.fetch()must wait • A synchronized method has exclusive access to instance variables • A synchronized statement synchronizes only a part of a method synchronized (expression) statement • The expression determines to which object is the statementsynchronized

27. Cooperation Synchronization in Java • Cooperation synchronization in Java is achieved using the methods wait(), notify(), and notifyAll() • Because the methods are defined in the root class Object, they are available for all objects • wait() must be called in a loop • notify() tells one waiting thread that the event it was waiting for has happened • The notifyAll() method awakens all of the threads on the object’s wait list

28. Java’s Thread Evaluation • Java’s support for concurrency is relatively simple but effective • Not as powerful as Ada’s tasks