PC 1

Read Chapter 1 of the textbook and give definitions for: (10 pts. each)

  1. virtualization

    • provide an application with the illusion of resources that are not physically present

  2. reliability

    • a property of a system that does exactly what it is designed to do

  3. availability

    • the percentage of time that a system is usable

  4. portability

    • the ability of software to work across multiple hardware platforms

  5. application programming interface (API)

    • the system call interface provided by an operating system to applications

  6. overhead

    • the added resource cost of implementing an abstraction versus using the underlying hardware resources directly

  7. response time

    • the time for a task to complete, from when it starts until it is done

  8. throughput

    • the rate at which a group of tasks are completed

  9. performance predictability

    • whether a system’s response time or other performance metric is consistent over time

  10. time-sharing operating system

    • an operating system designed to support interactive use of the computer