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.
Famous quotes containing the words resource and/or contention:
“In a world which furnishes so many employments which are useful, and so many which are amusing, it is our own fault if we ever know what ennui [boredom] is, or if we are ever driven to the miserable resource of gaming, which corrupts our dispositions, and teaches us a habit of hostility against all mankind.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Contention is inseparable from creating knowledge. It is not contention we should try to avoid, but discourses that attempt to suppress contention.”
—Joyce Appleby (b. 1929)