Performance evolution in a large scale system. [DEMOS operating system]
Richard S. Brice, J. Wayne Anderson · University of North Texas Digital Library (University of North Texas) · 1980
This paper documents the evolution of system performance in an operating system from its initial use by a few friendly users in October 1978 to its present state. The system, DEMOS, was developed for the Cray Research Inc. (CRI) Cray-1 computer at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL) by staff members in the LASL Computer Science and Services Division. Some important features of DEMOS architecture are described. It is shown how the robustness in the design permitted major reduction in overhead to be achieved with only minor software changes. Particular emphasis is placed on file system design and performance because much of the system overhead reduction occurred as a result of changes to this system component. Also, some predictions are made regarding performance resulting from proposed modifications. 8 figures.