Cooperative Process in Operating System
In multiprogramming environment multiple processes co-exist. A single program may be broken into a number of processes. The processes are classified into two categories :
- Independent processes
- Cooperating processes
Independent processes
An independent process is a standalone process that does not share any data with any other process. It cannot affect or affected by the other processes executing in the system. In other words, the modification made to an independent process does not affect the functioning of the other process.
Cooperative Process in Operating System
A cooperating process is a process that shares data with other processes in a system. It can affect or affected by the other processes executing in the system. Cooperating processes can communicate in a shared memory environment.
The various reasons for using cooperating processes are :
1. Information sharing :
When several users want to access a same piece of information, they require concurrent access to these types of resources.
2. Computational Speed Up:
A task can break into various subtasks so that each of them can run in parallel and this gives faster computation results.
3. To support modularity:
When a system created in modular fashion by dividing it into small functional units; co-operating processes are required. Cooperation processes establishes communication between the different modulus.