Round Robin Scheduling Algorithm with Example

Lawrence WilliamsByLawrence Williams Hours Updated

What is Round-Robin Scheduling?

The name of this algorithm comes from the round-robin principle, where each person gets an equal share of something in turns. It is the oldest, simplest scheduling algorithm, which is mostly used for multitasking.

In Round-robin scheduling, each ready task runs turn by turn only in a cyclic queue for a limited time slice. This algorithm also offers starvation free execution of processes.

In this Operating system tutorial, you will learn:

Characteristics of Round-Robin Scheduling

Here are the important characteristics of Round-Robin Scheduling:

  • Round robin is a pre-emptive algorithm
  • The CPU is shifted to the next process after fixed interval time, which is called time quantum/time slice.
  • The process that is preempted is added to the end of the queue.
  • Round robin is a hybrid model which is clock-driven
  • Time slice should be minimum, which is assigned for a specific task that needs to be processed. However, it may differ OS to OS.
  • It is a real time algorithm which responds to the event within a specific time limit.
  • Round robin is one of the oldest, fairest, and easiest algorithm.
  • Widely used scheduling method in traditional OS.

Example of Round-robin Scheduling

Consider this following three processes

Process Queue Burst time
P1 4
P2 3
P3 5

Step 1) The execution begins with process P1, which has burst time 4. Here, every process executes for 2 seconds. P2 and P3 are still in the waiting queue.

Step 2) At time =2, P1 is added to the end of the Queue and P2 starts executing


Step 3) At time=4 , P2 is preempted and add at the end of the queue. P3 starts executing.

Step 4) At time=6 , P3 is preempted and add at the end of the queue. P1 starts executing.

Step 5) At time=8 , P1 has a burst time of 4. It has completed execution. P2 starts execution

Step 6) P2 has a burst time of 3. It has already executed for 2 interval. At time=9, P2 completes execution. Then, P3 starts execution till it completes.

Step 7) Let’s calculate the average waiting time for above example.

Wait time 
P1= 0+ 4= 4
P2= 2+4= 6
P3= 4+3= 7

Advantage of Round-robin Scheduling

Here, are pros/benefits of Round-robin scheduling method:

  • It doesn’t face the issues of starvation or convoy effect.
  • All the jobs get a fair allocation of CPU.
  • It deals with all process without any priority
  • If you know the total number of processes on the run queue, then you can also assume the worst-case response time for the same process.
  • This scheduling method does not depend upon burst time. That’s why it is easily implementable on the system.
  • Once a process is executed for a specific set of the period, the process is preempted, and another process executes for that given time period.
  • Allows OS to use the Context switching method to save states of preempted processes.
  • It gives the best performance in terms of average response time.

Disadvantages of Round-robin Scheduling

Here, are drawbacks/cons of using Round-robin scheduling:

  • If slicing time of OS is low, the processor output will be reduced.
  • This method spends more time on context switching
  • Its performance heavily depends on time quantum.
  • Priorities cannot be set for the processes.
  • Round-robin scheduling doesn’t give special priority to more important tasks.
  • Decreases comprehension
  • Lower time quantum results in higher the context switching overhead in the system.
  • Finding a correct time quantum is a quite difficult task in this system.

Worst Case Latency

This term is used for the maximum time taken for execution of all the tasks.

  • dt = Denote detection time when a task is brought into the list
  • st = Denote switching time from one task to another
  • et = Denote task execution time

Formula:

Tworst = {(dti+ sti + eti ), + (dti+ sti + eti )2 +...+ (dti+ sti + eti )N., + (dti+ sti + eti  + eti) N} + tISR	
t,SR = sum of all execution times

Summary:

  • The name of this algorithm comes from the round-robin principle, where each person gets an equal share of something in turns.
  • Round robin is one of the oldest, fairest, and easiest algorithms and widely used scheduling methods in traditional OS.
  • Round robin is a pre-emptive algorithm
  • The biggest advantage of the round-robin scheduling method is that If you know the total number of processes on the run queue, then you can also assume the worst-case response time for the same process.
  • This method spends more time on context switching
  • Worst-case latency is a term used for the maximum time taken for the execution of all the tasks.

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