Premium Essay

The Benefits and Uses of Virtual Memory

In: Computers and Technology

Submitted By Shill4135
Words 788
Pages 4
The Benefits and Uses of Virtual Memory
Marcia Amnay
POS/355
Steven Kernan
April 22nd, 2013 The Benefits and Uses of Virtual Memory This paper will discuss the benefits and uses of virtual memory. Programs require memory to start and run on computers. When several jobs are being processed at the same time, the operating system must keep track of how the computer’s memory and make sure there is enough. Computers come with a limited amount of random access memory which is known as RAM. RAM is the main memory on a computer. If a user is running multiple applications at the same time, the RAM on it will not be enough to execute the processes. This is when virtual memory comes in and balances the process. Virtual memory is a memory management technique. Virtual memory is secondary memory that can act as if it were part of the main memory. When the RAM is used up, virtual memory places data by using the hard disk or another disk of some kind for space. The hard disk is much slower then RAM so the more virtual memory used, the slower your computer will run. The computer will look for areas on the RAM that are not in use and copy it to the hard disk to free up space on the RAM. Virtual memory keeps ‘active’ process in the RAM and keeps the ‘inactive’ processes on the address space on the disk. When an ‘inactive’ process is needed, it will bring that process back to the RAM from the disk. This process is running in the background without the user being aware. The disk runs much slower so the more RAM a computer has, the fast it will run. When using multiple or large applications, it is best to have as much physical memory if possible. Paging and Segmentation are two basic approaches to providing virtual memory. A page file is the area of the hard disk that stores the RAM images. Paging or segmenting is breaking a process into smaller

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Virtual Memory

...Running head: THE BENEFITS AND USES OF VIRTUAL MEMORY The Use and Benefits of Virtual Memory Jacqueline Askew University of Phoenix Abstract There are many computer users that are not familiar with computers or the way they function. This paper is centered around and will provide a definition of virtual memory. Information will also be provided on the benefits and how virtual memory used. The Use and Benefits of Virtual Memory There are so many facets to computers and how they function. Someone that is a novice user is not aware of how they run. They just turn them on and ready, set go. The more advanced computer user has a better insight to the functionality and maintenance of the computer. Whether it is a laptop or desktop the most common part of an operating system is virtual memory. Based on how much memory a computer has determines how many programs can be run. Virtual memory uses free space found on the hard drive in order to allow other programs to run. This seamless transition is unnoticeable to the human eye. Because the virtual memory frees up space in the Random Access Memory, other applications can load. This is an automatic process, so even with the standard memory virtual memory makes it seems like it has more. One of the benefits of virtual memory is the financial side. There is not a lot of out of pocket expense because it becomes more expensive to purchase RAM chips than hard disk space. The virtual memory will allow a user to run...

Words: 472 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

The Virtual Memory Manager (Vmm)

...The Virtual Memory Manager (VMM) The Difference between virtual memory and physical memory Physical memories are the RAM chips purchased and placed in a slot on the computer motherboard. The RAM is the first memory used when the computer requires memory usage, such as for loading an application or opening a document.  Virtual Virtual memory is stored on the hard drive. Virtual memory is used when the RAM is filled. Virtual memory is slower than physical memory, so it can decrease the performance of applications.  Allocation Physical memory allocates information in a "first in, last out" process. The information is placed on the stack. Virtual memory uses a process called paging. These pages are laid across the hard drive in fixed sizes.  Size 1. Physical memory is limited to the size of the RAM chips installed in the computer. Virtual memory is limited by the size of the hard drive, so virtual memory has the capability for more STORAGE. 2. Virtual memory is a memory management technique developed for multitasking kernels. 3. In virtual memory Operating systems have memory areas that are pinned (never swapped to secondary storage). For example, interrupt mechanisms rely on an array of pointers to their handlers, such as I/O completion and page fault. If the pages containing these pointers or the code that they invoke were pageable, interrupt-handling would become far more complex and time-consuming, particularly in the case of page fault interruptions...

Words: 1372 - Pages: 6

Free Essay

Memory Management

...Memory Management March 7, 2014 Memory Management Memory is one of the basic elements on a computer system. The memory allows the user to store data and programs. Memory management is the controlling, coordination and management of the computer memory (). The different memory types a computer has are a cache, main memory, and a disk used for virtual memory. Managing this memory will allow the user to access information faster. The memory management system is on the most important parts in the operating system. In this essay will be discussing the differences in memory management between Windows and Linux base operating system. Windows has implemented several technologies, for both resource allocation and security("Windows Memory Management", 2008). One of these technologies is Dynamic Allocation Space Layout Randomization, which all dynamically adjusts according to operation requirements. Windows uses virtual address space to make that could be bigger or smaller than the physical memory on the computer. Windows memory manager has two first-in-rank responsibilities("Windows Memory Management", 2008). The first is to translate, or map, a process’s virtual address space into physical memory so that when a thread is running in the context of that process reads or writes to the virtual address space, the correct physical address is referenced ("Windows Memory Management", 2008). This minimizes hackers’ threats to the computer system. Second on is paging some of the...

Words: 616 - Pages: 3

Free Essay

It Watch

...ITDM IT WATCH ON VIRTUALIZATION SUBMITTED BY GROUP 9 CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION TO VIRTUALIZATION 2. TYPES OF VIRTUALIZATION 3. ADVANTAGES OF VIRTUALIZATION 4. VIRTUALIZATION IN INDIA 5. REFERENCES INTRODUCTION Virtualization is the creation of a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, such as an operating system, a server, a storage device or network resources. In layman's term, virtualization allows you to run an independent operating system within an existing operating system using the existing hardware resources. So if you want to learn another operating system like Linux, you can use virtualization to run Linux on top of the existing operating system. Virtualization is the abstraction of IT resources, separating their physical instance and boundaries from their function. Virtualization has brought important innovation to IT Virtualization concept was first developed by IBM in the 1960s to fully utilize mainframe hardware by logically partitioning them into virtual machines. These partitions will allow mainframe computers to perform multiple tasks and applications at the same time.. During the 1980s and 1990s, desktop computing and x86 servers become available and so the virtualization technology was discarded eventually. Client-server applications and the emergence of Windows and Linux made server computing significantly inexpensive...

Words: 1666 - Pages: 7

Free Essay

Memory Management

...Memory management Memory management for a computer in its simplest form is the act of managing memory for a computer. The goal of this management is to allow the most efficient method of allocating portions of memory to processes requesting memory and the ability to release this memory when no longer needed. This management process is critical to the operation and processing speed of the computer. Without proper management of memory the computer can cause slow response times, program segmentation faults, and possible loss of data. One memory management technique is know as Virtual Memory. This technique involves the use of both software and hardware. This technique is also an integral part of modern computing. The virtual memory maps the memory addresses used by a program, known as virtual addresses, to physical addresses of computer memory. This allows for the process or task to seemingly access memory as a contiguous portion of memory. The operating system manages the virtual addresses so that the process does not need to handle this. The process just assumes its accessing physical memory. The benefit of this technique is that it frees applications from having to manage shared memory and possibly increase security because of memory isolation. “Virtual memory makes the system appear to have more memory than it actually has by sharing it between competing processes as they need it.” (Rusling, 1996-1999, Chapter 3) An important concept in memory management is the concept...

Words: 559 - Pages: 3

Free Essay

Performance Tuning for Windows Server 2008

...views expressed in this document, including URL and other Internet website references, may change without notice. Some information relates to pre-released product which may be substantially modified before it’s commercially released. Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, with respect to the information provided here. You bear the risk of using it. ------------------------------------------------- Some examples depicted herein are provided for illustration only and are fictitious. No real association or connection is intended or should be inferred. ------------------------------------------------- This document does not provide you with any legal rights to any intellectual property in any Microsoft product. You may copy and use this document for your internal, reference purposes. ------------------------------------------------- © 2013 Microsoft. All rights reserved. Document History Date | Change | | | | April 12, 2013 | Added note in the “Performance Tuning for TPC-E workload” section that the tunings are specifically for OLTP benchmarking...

Words: 50142 - Pages: 201

Premium Essay

Cs 2301 Unit 4 Homework

...CS 2301 Programming Assignment Unit 4: Abstraction Student University of the People Abstract 1. Explain cache coherency.  2. What is the benefit of using sparse addresses in virtual memory? 3. Name and describe the different states that a process can exist in at any given time. 4. Describe two general approaches to load balancing. 5. Describe the differences between physical, virtual, and logical memory. CS 2301 Programming Assignment Unit 4: Abstraction This week we continued to learn the different elements of virtualization. The exploration of the ins and outs of this key concept of operating systems continued with the expansion of our knowledge of scheduling, in particular the topic of multi-processor scheduling. The unit rounded out with...

Words: 618 - Pages: 3

Free Essay

Sams Dan

...VMWARE WHITE P A P E R W H I T E PAPER Virtualization Overview 1 VMWARE WHITE PAPER Table of Contents Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 3 Virtualization in a Nutshell ................................................................................................................... 3 Virtualization Approaches .................................................................................................................... 4 Virtualization for Server Consolidation and Containment ........................................................... 7 How Virtualization Complements New-Generation Hardware .................................................. 8 Para-virtualization ................................................................................................................................... 8 VMware’s Virtualization Portfolio ........................................................................................................ 9 Glossary ..................................................................................................................................................... 10 2 VMWARE WHITE PAPER Virtualization Overview Introduction Among the leading business challenges confronting CIOs and IT managers today are: cost-effective utilization of IT infrastructure; responsiveness in supporting new business initiatives;...

Words: 2715 - Pages: 11

Premium Essay

Essays

...Structure Virtual Machines System Design and Implementation System Generation Common System Components Process Management Main Memory Management Secondary-Storage Management I/O System Management File Management Protection System Networking Command-Interpreter System Process Management A process is a program in execution. A process needs certain resources, including CPU time, memory, files, and I/O devices, to accomplish its task. The operating system is responsible for the following activities in connection with process management. Process creation and deletion. process suspension and resumption. Provision of mechanisms for: process synchronization process communication Main-Memory Management Memory is a large array of words or bytes, each with its own address. It is a repository of quickly accessible data shared by the CPU and I/O devices. Main memory is a volatile storage device. It loses its contents in the case of system failure. The operating system is responsible for the following activities in connections with memory management: Keep track of which parts of memory are currently being used and by whom. Decide which processes to load when memory space becomes available. Allocate and deallocate memory space as needed. Secondary-Storage Management Since main memory (primary storage)...

Words: 1619 - Pages: 7

Free Essay

Pos 355 – Week 1

...Option 2: The Differences in Memory Management between Windows® and Linux®. Linux and Windows are both operating systems for the everyday computers. They both do not require special hardware. Many claim one operating system is better than the other. Windows does something better than Linux and Linux does something’s better than Windows. How each of these handles memory is the key to understanding. Linux has the unique ability to virtually extend system RAM capabilities with another form of partitioning called SWAP space. SWAP space is used by Linux to add more virtual RAM to the system. Virtual memory sort of trick the system to think it has more memory that it actually has by sharing it between competing processes as they are desired. This speeds up the capability of Linux to operate faster and with less system resources than a Windows machine with similar RAM specs. This swap space is dedicated specifically for paging operations. Paging is the function of writing parts of memory chunks to temporary space on a hard disk. Windows commonly uses a dynamically allocated temporary space on a hard disk called a “page file” for memory management. A “page file” is allocated on disk, for less frequently accessed objects in memory; things that would not necessarily be needed to be constantly in the hard drive or RAM memory buffer. This leaves more RAM obtainable to aggressively used objects. Windows and Linux have modern memory management architecture that in reality have lot...

Words: 310 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

Assignment3

...VIJAYBHASKAR GUDIBOINA ID 10000125667 3.6 A 32-bit processor can address 4G memory. How do you build a 32-bit computer with more than 4G memory? A 32-bit only CPU can address a maximum of 4GB (2^32 bits = 4294967296 bits = 4194304 KB = 4096 MB = 4GB). This is the limitation of 32-bit systems. Allocating a page file on top of your RAM if you already have 4GB of physical RAM will be useless.  However, even if you have 4GB of physical RAM installed you won't be able to use all of it for your applications. A portion of the upper 3GB address is being occupied by your system devices like your graphics card, BIOS, PCI, etc. That's why on some systems, you will see only 3.27GB of available RAM. This usually varies depending on the hardware. Take a look at the crude illustration below.  In normal mode, the 32-bit OS can address this much:  +---------------+ 4GB  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  +---------------+ 0  Now if you put in your stuff and your RAM, say 2GB, in this address space:  +---------------+ 4GB  | BIOS, PCI |  | GFX, ETC... |  | |  | |  |---------------+ 3 GB  | |  | |  | EMPTY |  | |  |---------------+ 2 GB  | |  | RAM |  | |  | |  +---------------+ 0  If you put another 1GB RAM in there for a total of 3GB it will still be fine because you still have 1GB of EMPTY space.  But if you...

Words: 1155 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Virtualization

...Virtualization and Its Benefits Virtualization and Its Benefits AITP – Research and Strategy Advisory Group Christine, Leja, CCP, Chair Richard C. Barnier Charles L. Brown, CCP Paul F. Dittmann Paul Koziel Mark Welle J.T. Westermeier, JD, CCP Abstract Virtualization provides many benefits – greater efficiency in CPU utilization, greener IT with less power consumption, better management through central environment control, more availability, reduced project timelines by eliminating hardware procurement, improved disaster recovery capability, more central control of the desktop, and improved outsourcing services. With these benefits, it is no wonder that virtualization has had a meteoric rise to the 2008 Top 10 IT Projects! This white paper presents a brief look at virtualization, its benefits and weaknesses, and today’s “best practices” regarding virtualization. The Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP) recommends these “best practices” to obtain the benefits that virtualization offers. Copyright 2008, Association of Information Technology Professionals. Permission to copy for personal non-commercial use granted. When the paper is referenced or quoted, direct the reader to www.aitp.org. Special thanks to the following editor: Mike Hinton, Southwestern Illinois College AITP Research and Strategy Advisory Group October 14, 2008 Page 1 of 40 Virtualization and Its Benefits Executive Summary Virtualization has quickly evolved from concept...

Words: 16382 - Pages: 66

Free Essay

Unix/Linux Versus Mac Versus Windows

...basis for application programs and intermediate between the computer’s user and its hardware. There are many different types of Operating serves that are available to use. There are four main Operating systems that are used in today’s Technological world: UNIX, Linux, Mac, and Windows. Each one of these systems has its own unique aspects to offer users, while still sharing the same basics that an operating system needs. Memory Management UNIX/Linux In comparison to other operating systems, UNIX is quite different when it comes to managing its memory. It uses extremely sophisticated memory management algorithms to make the best use of memory resources. Though UNIX and Linux are extremely similar when it comes to how things work internally, there are slight differences that make UNIX distinct. One process that UNIX uses is Swapping; this is done by moving chunks of the Virtual Memory, known as pages, out of the main memory and moving others in. In order for this process to work at its best, those pages that are needed must be accessible in the Main Memory at the demand of the CPU. When a page is expected to be needed in the very near future it is called a resident set. This can lead to errors due to memory allocation issues. If the CPU attempts to access a page that is no longer available in the Main Memory, a page fault will occur, and the needed page will then have to be located, as the CPU...

Words: 4984 - Pages: 20

Free Essay

Assignment 3

...Assignment 3: Virtualization across the Board Chris Brown Strayer University CIS512 Dr. Gideon U. Nwatu ABSTRACT Virtualization is simply when a virtual version of a device or resources such as server, a storage device, network or even an operating system, which divides the resources into one or more execution environment is created. Virtualization has provided greater efficiency in CPU utilization, save energy (less energy consumption), greener IT, and better management through central environment control, reduce project timelines by eliminating hardware procurement, improved disaster recovery capability. Virtualization is sure the best innovation in the IT environment of the present age. The core idea behind virtualization is to make efficient use of hardware resources, such as CPU, memory and disk. In any computing environment it’s highly unlikely that hardware resources are being used to their full capacity. For example a typical desktop does not use more than 10% of its hardware resources under normal operational conditions. By using hardware virtualization, we can more effectively distribute our hardware resources among multiple virtual instances of operating systems according to that particular environment computing needs. Virtualization provides a mean to dynamically allocate hardware resources when needed and essentially unbinding software from hardware. Thus bringing down the overall requirements for hardware, which ultimately result in reduction of...

Words: 1691 - Pages: 7

Free Essay

Virtualization Infrastructure

...Module 2 Homework 1) Define a virtual machine. A set of files that are easy to transfer and back-up. Virtual machines enable you to consolidate your physical servers and make more efficient use of your hardware. Because a virtual machine is a set of files, features not available or not as efficient on physical architectures are now available. 2) Describe the benefits of using virtual machines. Easy to relocate, manage, allows servers to be consolidated, and use of legacy applications. 3) Describe how vSphere interacts with CPUs, memory, networks, and disks. Ensures that resources are maximized. 4) What are the two graphical user interfaces available for interacting with the vSphere environment? vSphere Client and Web Client 5) What does ESXi do? ESXi has a small disk footprint (about 144MB) for added security and reliability. ESXi provides additional protection with the following features: • Memory hardening: The ESXi kernel, user-mode applications, and executable components like drivers and libraries are located at random, nonpredictable memory addresses. • Kernel module integrity: Digital signing ensures the integrity and authenticity of modules, drivers, and applications as they are loaded by the VMkernel. • Trusted Platform Module (TPM): A hardware element that creates a trusted platform and enables affirmation that the boot process and all drivers loaded are genuine 6) What is the default password for ESXi root administration? Null 7) What will...

Words: 317 - Pages: 2