While taking about system,first we must know about any particular system and the main think is we must know about the components of that particular system.Here we are going to discuss about some of the commonly used System Components.
The Modern operating systems share the goal of supporting the system components.The system components are:
1.Process Management
2.Main Memory Management
3.File Management
4.Secondary Storage Management
5.I/O System Management
6.Networking
7.Protection System
8.Command Interpreter System
Now we can briefly discuss about the above system components.
1.Process Management:
Normally Process always refers to a program which is in execution.The process abstraction is a fundamental operating system mechanism for management of concurrent program execution.The operating system responds by creating a process.A process must needs a certain resources,such as CPU time,memory,files and I/o devices.These resources are either given to the process when it is created or allocated to it while it is running.Process Management is one of the important component of a Modern system.The term 'Process' refers to an executing set of machine instructions.
The operating system is rseponsible for the following activities of the process management.
* Creating and destroying the user and system processes.
* Also it provides mechanisms for handling Deadlock.
* Allocating hardware resources,among the processes.
* Controlling the progress of processes.
* Providing mechanisms for process communications.
This is called Process Management.
2.Main Memory Management:
Memory Management is very useful and essential component of a system.The memory management modules of an operating system are concerned with the management of the primary memory that is main memory.
Memory Management is primarily concerned with the allocation of physical memory of the finite capacity to the requesting processes.There are many memory management schemes are available and the effectiveness of the different algorithms depends on the particular situation.
3.File Management:
File management is nothing but a process of storage and retriving the files.Logically related data items on the secondary storage are usually organized into named collections called "Files".In other words,a file is a collection of information.
A file may contain a report,an executable program or a set of commands to the operating system.A file normally consists of a sequence of bits,bytes,lines and records.Normally Secondary storage device is used to store the files.
Some of the secondary storage devices are magnetic tapes,magnetic disks and optical disks.
The operating system is responsible for the following activities in connection with the file management.
* Creating and deleting of files.
* Mapping files onto the secondary storage.
* Creating and deleting directories.
* Backing Up files on stable storage media.
The file management subsystem can be implemented as one or more layers of the operating system.
4.Secondary Storage Management:
As we discussed above,the Secondary storage devices are used to store all the data andd programs.These programs and data access by computer system must be kept in main memory.But the size of the main memory is small to accommodate all data and programs.It also lost the data when power is lost.For this reason we use secondary storage devices.
The oprating system is responsible for the following activities in connection with the disk management.
* Free Space Management.
* Storage Allocation.
* Disk Scheduling.
The whole speed and performance of a computer may hinge on the speed of the disk subsystem.
5.I/O System Management:
The module that keeps track of the status of devices is called the I/O traffic controller.
Normally an I/O subsystem consists of the following:
* A memory management component that includes buffering,caching and spooling.
* A general device driver interface.
* Drivers for specific hardware devices.
6.Networking:
Normally Networking means Communicate with and within a group.Networking enables the computer users to share resources and speed up computations.Then the processor communicate with one another through various communication lines.
While designing a network we must consider the following parameters in mind.
* Topology of the network
* Type of Network
* Physical Media
* Communication protocols
* Routing algorithms
7.Protection System:
Modern computer systems support many users and allow the concurrent execution of multiple processes.Protection mechanisms are implemented in operating systems to support various security policies.Protection domains are extensions of the hardware supervisor mode ability.
8.Command Interpreter System:
It is the special program in Unix and MS-DOS operating system.It reads the control statement,analyse it and carries out the required action.
These are the system components which are used widely.I hope that it is very useful to you.