Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Zhigu Holdings Limited

Genevieve Fernandes

Paul F Ringseth

Niklas Gustafsson

Marko Radmilac

William Robert Messmer

Rick Molloy

Rahul V Patil

Adrian Mihail Marinescu

Krishnan Varadarajan

Neill Michael Clift

Donald James McCrady

David Bradley Probert, Jr

Philip Lucido

Michael L Chu

Eric Li

John Austin Rector

Robert Earhart

Adnan Ilik

Rahul Patil

Paul Ringseth

A runtime environment allows a scheduler in a process of a computer system to be finalized prior to the process completing. The runtime environment causes execution contexts that are inducted into the scheduler and execution contexts created by the scheduler to be tracked. The runtime environment finalizes the scheduler subsequent to each inducted execution context exiting the scheduler and each created execution context being retired by the scheduler.

Scheduler finalization

A scheduler in a process of a computer system allows an external execution context to execute on a processing resource allocated to the scheduler. The scheduler provides control of the processing resource to the external execution context. The scheduler registers for a notification of an exit event associated with the external execution context. In response to receiving the notification that the exit event has occurred, the scheduler regains control of the processing resource and causes a task associated with an execution context controlled by the scheduler to be executed by the processing resource.

Regaining control of a processing resource that executes an external execution context

A concurrent data structure allows synchronization to be elided for read accesses. Processing resources that remove one or more elements of the concurrent data structure are allowed to delete the elements only after all other processing resources have reached a safe point. Each processing resource maintains an indicator that indicates whether the processing resource has reached as safe point (i.e., will not access the concurrent data structure). When the indicators indicate that all processing resources have reached a safe point, elements of the data structure may be deleted.

Eliding synchronization in a concurrent data structure

An interface between a resource manager and schedulers in a process executing on a computer system allows the resource manager to manage the resources of the schedulers. The resource manager communicates with the schedulers using the interface to access statistical information from the schedulers. The statistical information describes the amount of use of the resources by the schedulers. The resource manager also communicates with the schedulers to dynamically allocate and reallocate resources among the schedulers in the same or different processes or computer systems in accordance with the statistical information.

Interface between a resource manager and a scheduler in a process

Each processing resource in a scheduler of a process executing on a computer system maintains counts of the number of tasks that arrive at the processing resource and the number of tasks that complete on the processing resource. The counts are maintained in storage that is only writeable by the corresponding processing resource. The scheduler collects and sums the counts from each processing resource and provides statistics based on the summed counts and previous summed counts to a resource manager in response to a request from the resource manager. The scheduler does not reset the counts when the counts are collected and stores copies of the summed counts for use with the next request from the resource manager. The counts may be maintained without synchronization and with thread safety to minimize the impact of gathering statistics on the application.

Monitoring and updating tasks arrival and completion statistics without data locking synchronization

A scheduler in a process of a computer system detects a task with an associated execution context that has not been previously invoked by the scheduler. The scheduler executes the task on a processing resource without performing a context switch if the processing resource executed a previous task to completion. The scheduler stores the execution context originally associated with the task for later use.

Task execution and context switching in a scheduler

A resource manager manages processing and other resources of schedulers of one or more processes executing on one or more computer systems. For each scheduler, the resource manager determines an initial allocation of resources based on the policy of the scheduler, the availability of resources, and the policies of other schedulers. The resource manager receives feedback from the schedulers and dynamically changes the allocation of resources of schedulers based on the feedback. The resource manager determines if changes improved the performance of schedulers and commits or rolls back the changes based on the determination.

Dynamically change allocation of resources to schedulers based on feedback and policies from the schedulers and availability of the resources

A runtime environment of a computer system is provided that creates first and second scheduler instances in a process. Each scheduler instance includes allocated processing resources and is assigned a set of tasks for execution. Each scheduler instance schedules tasks for execution using the allocated processing resources to perform the work of the process.

Method of assigning instructions in a process to a plurality of scheduler instances based on the instruction, in which each scheduler instance is allocated a set of negoitaited processor resources

A scheduler in a process of a computer system includes a local collection of tasks for each processing resource allocated to the scheduler and at least one general collection of tasks. The scheduler assigns each task that becomes unblocked to the local collection corresponding to the processing resource that caused the task to become unblocked. When a processing resource becomes available, the processing resource attempts to execute the most recently added task in the corresponding local collection. If there are no tasks in the corresponding local collection, the available processing resource attempts to execute a task from the general collection.

Local collections of tasks in a scheduler

A scheduler in a process of a computer system includes a respective scheduling collection for each scheduling node in the scheduler. The scheduling collections are mapped into at least a partial search order based on one or more execution metrics. When a processing resource in a scheduling node becomes available, the processing resource first attempts to locate a task to execute in a scheduling collection corresponding to the scheduling node before searching other scheduling collections in an order specified by the search order.

Scheduling collections in a scheduler

Embodiments are directed to dynamically allocating processing resources among a plurality of resource schedulers. A resource manager dynamically allocates resources to a first resource scheduler. The resource manager is configured to dynamically allocate resources among a plurality of resource schedulers, and each scheduler is configured to manage various processing resources. The resource manager determines that at least one of the processing resources dynamically allocated to the first resource scheduler is idle. The resource manager determines that at least one other resource scheduler needs additional processing resources and, based on the determination, loans the determined idle processing resource of the first resource scheduler to a second resource scheduler.

Efficient utilization of idle resources in a resource manager

Shutting down a computer work scheduler. The work scheduler includes a number of virtual processors, each of which is either active or inactive. An active processor executes work, searches for work, or is idle. An inactive has no context running atop it. The method includes determining that all processors controlled by the scheduler are idle. As a result of determining that all controlled by the scheduler are idle, the method proceeds to a first phase of a shutdown operation, which when successful, includes: performing a sweep of all collections searching for any work in the scheduler and determining that no work is found in the scheduler. As a result of determining that no work is found in the scheduler, the method proceeds to a second phase of a shutdown operation, which when successful includes messaging all contexts in the scheduler and telling them to exit.

Low synchronization means of scheduler finalization

Sharing access to resources using an inter-process communication ('IPC') provides a connection in which references to resources are passed from a sender to a receiver in a trusted third party environment. A sender in possession of a reference to a resource, such as a handle to an object, may initiate the connection with the receiver. In turn, the receiver may accept or refuse the connection, and may further specify the types of resources in which the receiver is interested when accepting through the connection. Sharing access to resources in this manner advantageously insures that only a process that already has access to a resource is able to share that access with another process, and further that only processes that wish to do so will accept such access.

Handle passing using an inter-process communication

A system and method for identity decisions and invalidation. Modified objects (e.g., files, executables, etc.) are flagged for reevaluation. Privileges associated with the object are only persisted if the modifications are determined to be authorized (e.g., updates and patches). In one embodiment, a tagging system registers to be notified of all writes, renames, truncations, moves, deletions, or any other relevant modifications to objects. If the tagging system detects a modification operation targeting the object, it invalidates all identity decisions cached with the object. The next time the object runs, the system does not recognize the object and it is forced to reevaluate its identity. Thus, patching and other write operations are still permitted, but the system detects the changed object and reevaluates the identity.

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Redmond, WA, United States of America

Genevieve Fernandes