Pos355-Mem-Management

Memory Management

Memory management is defined as “the task of subdivision carried out dynamically by the operating system” (Stallings, 2012). A more roundabout way to describe it is that memory management is the act of managing computer memory.

Memory management is a way to distribute memory to programs that request it and then once the program is done with the memory, memory management is used to free up the memory that was used for reuse in for another program that requests access. The managing of memory is very crucial to an operating system. If there are no processes currently running, then the memory will be idle and waiting for I/O. When the memory is idle, there still needs to be enough memory allotted to make sure a reasonable amount of ready processes to consume available processor time.

There are a few requirements to keep in mind for memory management. Relocation, protection, sharing, logical organization, and physical organization. Relocation is when memory is relocated to a different area because the programmer does not know where the program will be placed in the memory when it is executed. There is also the possibility that the program is going to be executed and returned to the main memory or swapped to a disc.

When it comes to memory management requirements, protection plays a role. Processes should not be able to reference memory locations in another process without permission. Another way to protect memory management is to make it impossible to check the absolute address when the program being executed, compiles. The requirements of memory management protection must be completed by the processor, not the operating system.

Another requirement in memory management is sharing. Depeinding on what you are doing with your computer, there are going to be a lot of things going on at once, and in the background. So the memory needs to be shared to allow several processes to access the same portion of memory. Sharing also allows each process better...