Empirical Performance Comparison of Hardware and Software Task Context Switching
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Authors
Schultz, Eric A.
Subjects
Performance
Context Switch
Task Switch
TCX
LPSK
Intel
IA-32
MINIX 3
Context Switch
Task Switch
TCX
LPSK
Intel
IA-32
MINIX 3
Advisors
Irvine, Cynthia E.
Date of Issue
2009-06
Date
June 2009
Publisher
Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School
Language
Abstract
There are many divergent opinions regarding possible differences between the performance of hardware and
software context switching implementations. However, there are no concrete empirical measures of their true
differences. Using an empirical testing methodology, this research performed seven experiments, collecting
quantitative performance results on hardware and software-based context switch implementations with two and
four hardware privilege level support. The implementations measured are the hardware-based Intel IA-32 context
switch, the software-based MINIX 3 context switch, a software-based simulation of a MINIX 3 context switch
with four hardware privileged level support, and a software-based simulation of an Intel IA-32 hardware context
switch. Experiments were executed using the Trusted Computing Exemplar Least Privilege Separation Kernel
and the Linux 2.6 Kernel. The results include the number of cycles and time required to complete processing of
each implementation. This study concludes that the hardware-based context switching mechanism is significantly
slower than software implementation, even those that simulate the elaborate checks of the hardware
implementation. A possible reason for this is posited.
Type
Thesis
Description
Series/Report No
Department
Computer Science
Organization
Identifiers
NPS Report Number
Sponsors
Funding
Format
Citation
Distribution Statement
Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.