This course is intended to cover the concepts in the design of an operating system for Computers, starting from the perception of a process and how it starts itself as an interface between the machine and the user. The intricacies in communication between processes as well as their cooperation and competition for resources are to be dealt with

1. Evolution of operating systems – The process concept – OS services for process management – Scheduling algorithms – Performance evaluation – Inter process synchronization – Mutual exclusion – Semaphores – Critical region and conditional critical region - Monitors – Dead locks

2. Memory/ File management – Contiguous allocation – Single process monitor – Partitioned memory allocation – Static and dynamic segmentation – Non contiguous allocation – Paging – Virtual memory allocation policies – Page replacement policies – File system disk organization – Disk controller and driver – Disk cache – Generalization of file services

3. Security and Protection – Security threats and goals – Penetration attempts- Security policies and mechanisms – Authentification – Protection and access control – Formal models of protection – Worms and viruses

4. Multiprocessor operating systems – Types of multiprocessor operating systems – Functions and requirements of multiprocessor operating systems – Multiprocessing and multithreading – Multiprocessor synchronization – Operating system for real time applications – Real time Kernels – Polled loop and interrupt driven systems – Response times

5. Performance measurement – Monitoring and evolution – Introduction – Important trends affecting performance issues – Why performance monitoring and evolution are needed – Performance measure – Evaluation techniques – Bottlenecks and saturation – Feed back loops

6. Lab exercises in concurrent programming

1. Operating systems – Concepts and Design (1st Ed): Milan Milenkovic, McGrawHill (1992)
2. An Introduction to Operating Systems (1st Ed): H.M. Dietel, AW (1984)
3. Modern Operating Systems (1st Ed): Andrew S. Tanenbaum, PHI (1995)
4. Operating System Concepts(1st Ed): J.L. Peterson, A. Silberschatz, AW (1989)