In computer science, resource contention is a conflict over access to a shared resource such as random access memory, disk storage, cache memory, internal busses or external network devices. In recent years, research on the contention is more focused on the resources in the memory hierarchy, e.g., last-level caches, front-side bus, memory socket connection.
Resolving resource contention problems is one of the basic functions of operating systems. Various low-level mechanisms can be used to aid this, including locks, semaphores, mutexes and queues. The other techniques that can be applied by the operating systems include intelligent scheduling, application mapping decision, and page colouring.
Failure to properly resolve resource contention problems may result in a number of problems, including deadlock, livelock, and thrashing.
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