| David Beal on "What is real-time?" |
David Beal, of Lineo (Sept. 14, 2000)
Here are David Beal's answers:- What is real-time? -- Real-time is the ability to issue a command or instruction and get a response in a relatively predictable amount of time to that task. It is also defined as the actual time during which a process takes place or an event occurs.
For specific definitions of soft real-time and hard real-time, it is important to define two terms -- preemptive and deterministic:
- Preemptive scheduling lets a high priority job preempt a running job of lower priority, by suspending the low priority job to make resources available. Use preemptive scheduling if you have long-running low priority jobs that might cause high priority jobs to wait an unacceptably long time.
- Deterministic refers to the ability to predict when a specific event will occur at its precise moment.
- What is soft real-time? -- Soft real-time is a response to an instruction that is not necessarily exact or precise, but an average response time to a task. Soft real-time is neither preemptive or deterministic, but is a good solution for many real-time needs. Credit card readers or point-of-sale devices are good examples of soft real-time responses, because it is not critical whether a response to these devices is a half second early or a half second late. In a soft real-time system, we take a "best effort" approach and minimize latency from event to response as much as possible while keeping thoughput up with external events, overall.
Standard Linux provides very good soft real-time performance, especially when combined with Ingo Molnar's low latency patch.
- What is hard real-time? -- Hard real-time requires a guaranteed, preemptive, deterministic response to an instruction. It is not based on average response times (like soft real-time), because it is used when exactness is paramount down to the microsecond. Examples of when hard real-time is used are in industrial controls, the military, medical equipment, etc. In a hard real time system, the deadlines are fixed and the system must guarantee response within a fixed and well defined time.
Both RTLinux and RTAI operate below the Linux kernel, providing the ability to preempt Linux, and thus providing hard real-time response.
- Additional comment -- In summary, a hard real-time OS is one that provides a guarantee that the response to an event will occur within some fixed time, without fail, no matter what. A soft real-time OS will do it's best to service your event within, on average, a certain time. Both types of operating systems are useful, but they have distictly different uses.
Panelist's bio: Dave Beal currently serves in the position of Product Marketing Manager, Real-Time Solutions, for Lineo, Inc. Dave joined Lineo in February 2000, with the acquisition of Zentropix, Inc., which had been focused on real-time Linux since its inception in January, 1998. Prior to joining Zentropix, Dave worked in product/project management and test engineer roles within the communications simulation, commercial spread-spectrum communications, and radar and electronic warfare stimulation fields, where strict timing issues play a major role in a product's success or failure. Dave has also performed full-size aircraft antenna pattern measurement and US Army artillery computer repair and maintenance.
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