Analysis of the Optimal, Look-Ahead Demand Paging Algorithms
Alan Jay Smith · SIAM Journal on Computing · 1976
We express the future behavior of programs that may be described by two common program behavior models, the independent reference model and the LRU stack model, by a discrete time Markov chain. Using this Markov chain model, we are able to calculate the theoretical minimum number of page faults for a program representable by either of these models in either a fixed or variable size memory. The behavior of optimal look-ahead and optimal realizable demand paging algorithms are compared, and it is seen that look-ahead paging demonstrates an inherent advantage sufficient to account for the differences observed between currently implemented demand paging algorithms and theoretically optimal algorithms.