Threads & Concurrency

Outline

• Overview
• Multicore Programming
• Multithreading Models
• Thread Libraries
• Implicit Threading
• Threading Issues
• Operating System Examples
Objectives
• Identify the basic components of a thread, and contrast
threads and processes
• Describe the benefits and challenges of designing
multithreaded applications
• Illustrate different approaches to implicit threading including
thread pools, fork-join, and Grand Central Dispatch
• Describe how the Windows and Linux operating systems
represent threads
• Designing multithreaded applications using the Pthreads,
Java, and Windows threading APIs
Motivation

• Most modern applications are multithreaded

• Threads run within application
• Multiple tasks with the application can be implemented by
separate threads
• Update display
• Fetch data
• Spell checking
• Answer a network request
• Process creation is heavy-weight while thread creation is
light-weight
• Can simplify code, increase efficiency
• Kernels are generally multithreaded
Single and Multithreaded Processes
Multithreaded Server Architecture
Benefits
• Responsiveness – may allow continued execution if part of
process is blocked, especially important for user interfaces
• Resource Sharing – threads share resources of process, easier
than shared memory or message passing
• Economy – cheaper than process creation, thread switching
lower overhead than context switching
• Scalability – process can take advantage of multicore
architectures
 Multicore Programming

• Multicore or multiprocessor systems puts pressure on programmers,

challenges include:
• Dividing activities
• Balance
• Data splitting
• Data dependency
• Testing and debugging
• Parallelism implies a system can perform more than one task
simultaneously
• Concurrency supports more than one task making progress
• Single processor / core, scheduler providing concurrency
Concurrency vs. Parallelism
 Concurrent execution on single-core system:

 Parallelism on a multi-core system:

 Multicore Programming

• Types of parallelism
• Data parallelism – distributes subsets of the same data across
multiple cores, same operation on each
• Task parallelism – distributing threads across cores, each thread
performing unique operation
Data and Task Parallelism
Amdahl’s Law
• Identifies performance gains from adding additional cores to an application
that has both serial and parallel components
• S is serial portion
• N processing cores

• That is, if application is 75% parallel / 25% serial, moving from 1 to 2 cores
results in speedup of 1.6 times
• As N approaches infinity, speedup approaches 1 / S

Serial portion of an application has disproportionate effect on

performance gained by adding additional cores

• But does the law take into account contemporary multicore systems?
Amdahl’s Law
 User Threads and Kernel Threads

• User threads - management done by user-level threads library

• Three primary thread libraries:
• POSIX Pthreads
• Windows threads
• Java threads
• Kernel threads - Supported by the Kernel
• Examples – virtually all general-purpose operating systems, including:
• Windows
• Linux
• Mac OS X
• iOS
• Android
User and Kernel Threads
Multithreading Models

• Many-to-One
• One-to-One
• Many-to-Many
Many-to-One

• Many user-level threads mapped to single kernel thread

• One thread blocking causes all to block
• Multiple threads may not run in parallel on multicore system
because only one may be in kernel at a time
• Few systems currently use this model
• Examples:
• Solaris Green Threads
• GNU Portable Threads
One-to-One

• Each user-level thread maps to kernel thread

• Creating a user-level thread creates a kernel thread
• More concurrency than many-to-one
• Number of threads per process sometimes restricted due to
overhead
• Examples
• Windows
• Linux
Many-to-Many Model
• Allows many user level threads to be mapped to many kernel
threads
• Allows the operating system to create a sufficient number of
kernel threads
• Windows with the ThreadFiber package
• Otherwise not very common
Two-level Model
• Similar to M:M, except that it allows a user thread to be bound to
kernel thread
Thread Libraries

• Thread library provides programmer with API for creating and

managing threads
• Two primary ways of implementing
• Library entirely in user space
• Kernel-level library supported by the OS
Pthreads

• May be provided either as user-level or kernel-level

• A POSIX standard (IEEE 1003.1c) API for thread creation and
synchronization
• Specification, not implementation
• API specifies behavior of the thread library, implementation is up
to development of the library
• Common in UNIX operating systems (Linux & Mac OS X)
Pthreads Example
Pthreads Example (Cont.)
Pthreads Code for Joining 10 Threads
Windows Multithreaded C Program
Windows Multithreaded C Program (Cont.)
Java Threads

• Java threads are managed by the JVM

• Typically implemented using the threads model provided by
underlying OS
• Java threads may be created by:
• Extending Thread class
• Implementing the Runnable interface

• Standard practice is to implement Runnable interface

Java Threads
Implementing Runnable interface:

Creating a thread:

Waiting on a thread:
Java Executor Framework

• Rather than explicitly creating threads, Java also allows thread

creation around the Executor interface:

• The Executor is used as follows:

Java Executor Framework
Java Executor Framework (Cont.)
Implicit Threading

• Growing in popularity as numbers of threads increase, program

correctness more difficult with explicit threads
• Creation and management of threads done by compilers and run-
time libraries rather than programmers
• Five methods explored
• Thread Pools
• Fork-Join
• OpenMP
• Grand Central Dispatch
• Intel Threading Building Blocks
Thread Pools
• Create a number of threads in a pool where they await work
• Advantages:
• Usually slightly faster to service a request with an existing thread than
create a new thread
• Allows the number of threads in the application(s) to be bound to the size
of the pool
• Separating task to be performed from mechanics of creating task allows
different strategies for running task
• i.e,Tasks could be scheduled to run periodically
• Windows API supports thread pools:
Java Thread Pools

• Three factory methods for creating thread pools in Executors class:

Java Thread Pools (Cont.)
Fork-Join Parallelism

• Multiple threads (tasks) are forked, and then joined.

Fork-Join Parallelism

• General algorithm for fork-join strategy:

Fork-Join Parallelism
Fork-Join Parallelism in Java
Fork-Join Parallelism in Java
Fork-Join Parallelism in Java
• The ForkJoinTask is an abstract base class
• RecursiveTask and RecursiveAction classes extend
ForkJoinTask
• RecursiveTask returns a result (via the return value from the
compute() method)
• RecursiveAction does not return a result
OpenMP

• Set of compiler directives

and an API for C, C++,
FORTRAN
• Provides support for parallel
programming in shared-
memory environments
• Identifies parallel regions –
blocks of code that can run in
parallel
#pragma omp parallel
Create as many threads as
there are cores
• Run the for loop in parallel
Grand Central Dispatch
• Apple technology for macOS and iOS operating systems
• Extensions to C, C++ and Objective-C languages, API, and run-time
library
• Allows identification of parallel sections
• Manages most of the details of threading
• Block is in “^{ }” :

ˆ{ printf("I am a block"); }

• Blocks placed in dispatch queue

• Assigned to available thread in thread pool when removed from queue
Grand Central Dispatch

• Two types of dispatch queues:

• serial – blocks removed in FIFO order, queue is per process, called main
queue
• Programmers can create additional serial queues within program
• concurrent – removed in FIFO order but several may be removed at a time
• Four system wide queues divided by quality of service:
o QOS_CLASS_USER_INTERACTIVE
o QOS_CLASS_USER_INITIATED
o QOS_CLASS_USER_UTILITY
o QOS_CLASS_USER_BACKGROUND
Grand Central Dispatch

• For the Swift language a task is defined as a closure – similar to a

block, minus the caret
• Closures are submitted to the queue using the
dispatch_async() function:
 Intel Threading Building Blocks (TBB)

• Template library for designing parallel C++ programs

• A serial version of a simple for loop

• The same for loop written using TBB with parallel_for

statement:
Threading Issues
• Semantics of fork() and exec() system calls
• Signal handling
• Synchronous and asynchronous
• Thread cancellation of target thread
• Asynchronous or deferred
• Thread-local storage
• Scheduler Activations
 Semantics of fork() and exec()

• Does fork()duplicate only the calling thread or all threads?

• Some UNIXes have two versions of fork
• exec() usually works as normal – replace the running process
including all threads
 Signal Handling
• Signals are used in UNIX systems to notify a process that a particular
event has occurred.
• A signal handler is used to process signals
1. Signal is generated by particular event
2. Signal is delivered to a process
3. Signal is handled by one of two signal handlers:
1. default
2. user-defined
• Every signal has default handler that kernel runs when handling
signal
• User-defined signal handler can override default
• For single-threaded, signal delivered to process
 Signal Handling (Cont.)
• Where should a signal be delivered for multi-threaded?
• Deliver the signal to the thread to which the signal applies
• Deliver the signal to every thread in the process
• Deliver the signal to certain threads in the process
• Assign a specific thread to receive all signals for the process
 Thread Cancellation
• Terminating a thread before it has finished
• Thread to be canceled is target thread
• Two general approaches:
• Asynchronous cancellation terminates the target thread immediately
• Deferred cancellation allows the target thread to periodically check if it
should be cancelled
• Pthread code to create and cancel a thread:
 Thread Cancellation (Cont.)
• Invoking thread cancellation requests cancellation, but actual
cancellation depends on thread state

• If thread has cancellation disabled, cancellation remains pending

until thread enables it
• Default type is deferred
• Cancellation only occurs when thread reaches cancellation point
• i.e., pthread_testcancel()
• Then cleanup handler is invoked
• On Linux systems, thread cancellation is handled through signals
Thread Cancellation in Java

• Deferred cancellation uses the interrupt() method, which sets

the interrupted status of a thread.

• A thread can then check to see if it has been interrupted:

Thread-Local Storage

• Thread-local storage (TLS) allows each thread to have its own copy of
data
• Useful when you do not have control over the thread creation
process (i.e., when using a thread pool)
• Different from local variables
• Local variables visible only during single function invocation
• TLS visible across function invocations
• Similar to static data
• TLS is unique to each thread
 Scheduler Activations
• Both M:M and Two-level models require
communication to maintain the appropriate
number of kernel threads allocated to the
application
• Typically use an intermediate data structure
between user and kernel threads –
lightweight process (LWP)
• Appears to be a virtual processor on which
process can schedule user thread to run
• Each LWP attached to kernel thread
• How many LWPs to create?
• Scheduler activations provide upcalls - a
communication mechanism from the kernel
to the upcall handler in the thread library
• This communication allows an application to
maintain the correct number kernel threads
 Operating System Examples

• Windows Threads
• Linux Threads
Windows Threads
• Windows API – primary API for Windows applications
• Implements the one-to-one mapping, kernel-level
• Each thread contains
• A thread id
• Register set representing state of processor
• Separate user and kernel stacks for when thread runs in user mode or
kernel mode
• Private data storage area used by run-time libraries and dynamic link
libraries (DLLs)
• The register set, stacks, and private storage area are known as the
context of the thread
Windows Threads (Cont.)
• The primary data structures of a thread include:
• ETHREAD (executive thread block) – includes pointer to process to which
thread belongs and to KTHREAD, in kernel space
• KTHREAD (kernel thread block) – scheduling and synchronization info,
kernel-mode stack, pointer to TEB, in kernel space
• TEB (thread environment block) – thread id, user-mode stack, thread-local
storage, in user space
Windows Threads Data Structures
Linux Threads
• Linux refers to them as tasks rather than threads
• Thread creation is done through clone() system call
• clone() allows a child task to share the address space of the
parent task (process)
• Flags control behavior

• struct task_struct points to process data structures

(shared or unique)