System Image - Process Images

Process Images

A process image is a copy of its state at a given point in time. It is often used for persistence. A common example is a database management system (DBMS). Most DBMS can store the state of its database or databases to a file before being closed down (see database dump). The DBMS can then be restarted later with the information in the database intact and proceed as though the software had never stopped. Another example would be the hibernate feature of many operating systems. Here, the state of all RAM memory is stored to disk, the computer is brought into an energy saving mode, then later restored to normal operation.

Some emulators provide a facility to save an image of the system being emulated. This is often called a savestate.

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Famous quotes containing the words process and/or images:

    “A process in the weather of the world
    Turns ghost to ghost; each mothered child
    Sits in their double shade.
    A process blows the moon into the sun,
    Pulls down the shabby curtains of the skin;
    And the heart gives up its dead.”
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    “It is not the literal past, the “facts” of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language.”
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