OSSIM - An Operating System Simulator
Richard M. Reese., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Tarleton State University
Abstract
OSSim is an operating system simulator. It was developed to monitor different core elements of an operating system including: user-defined process scheduler, memory simulation including heap management, process simulation, and file simulation. In addition, the user is able to provide their own Java methods to control the elements of the simulator.
The OSSim can be used to explore the behavior of the operating system. For example, the user can step through each process to see when it has access to the processor, how long it has had access, and where in memory it is located. The use of memory is visually depicted in the simulator based upon which memory allocation method the user chooses.
The user is able to replace certain elements of the simulator with their own Java code. This modular approach permits the user to experiment with different implementations of different algorithms. Through this experimentation the user is able to gain a better understanding of the behavioral and performance characteristics of the OS element under consideration.