Round-robin scheduling is an algorithm that allocates a portion of time to each running process, ensuring that each job gets enough time to run. This helps manage resources and improve the user experience in multi-window environments. The CPU polls every running task during a cycle to determine if the process is finished.
Round-robin scheduling is an algorithm used to assist in creating job or job schedules to ensure that each job required to complete a job gets an ample amount of time to run. Computer CPUs can use times slicing to provide a specific amount of time for each process to use per cycle.
Using round-robin scheduling allocates a portion of time to each running process. For example, on a computer, the user launches three applications, Email, a Web browser, and a word processor. These applications are loaded into system memory as processes and each can run without the user considering which applications are running in the background.
Round-robin scheduling manages the sharing of resources between the three application processes (and countless others running in the background completely invisible to the user). This scheduling works well because each application gets a certain amount of time per processor cycle. A processor cycle is the amount of time it takes for the CPU to handle each running process, once.
The applications running in the example above provide a short cycle for the processor and more time would be allotted to each of these three processes, making them look better to the end user. Without round-robin scheduling, the application loaded into memory first would likely hog the processor until any of the assigned tasks finished executing. Once the application is closed, the next application could start and process without interruption. This would hamper the multi-window environments that computer users depend on. Using round-robin scheduling helps the computer keep pace with the end user and effectively manage all three application processes.
Round-robin scheduling advances all processes or running processes a little at a time, during each processor cycle, to help them all work together and improve the usability experience for the person working with the system. The CPU will then poll every running task during a cycle to help determine if the process is finished.
Suppose the user decides that they have completed their work in the word processing application and closes it. This leaves only the email and web browser applications running. The CPU would have no way of keeping track of this fact without round-robin scheduling of querying applications and finding that the word processor has closed and no longer needs processing time.
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