Throughput analysis of computer systems - multiprogramming versus multiprocessing

To increase system throughput, multiprogramming and multiprocessing systems are introduced. The first improves the throughput by means of interleaving the individual service requests, and the latter by exploiting the parallelism in the system design. The basic philosophy of multiprogramming is compared with that of multiprocessing to put the concepts in their proper perspective. Simple mathematical models, based on the theory of queues, were used to analyze the throughput capacity of these systems. The throughput of a given multiprogramming system configuration is compared with a number of multiprocessing systems. Within each multiprocessing system, the throughput is maximized by determining the optimum number of processors, and the optimum number of control and supervision programs which are required to control the system. The mathematical analysis is completely substantiated by the GPSS simulation results.