URS: User-Based Resource Scheduling for Multi-User Surface Computing Systems

Multi-user surface computing systems are promising for the next generation consumer electronics devices due to their convenience and excellent usability. However, conventional resource scheduling schemes can cause severe performance issues in surface computing systems, especially when they are adopted in multi-user environments, because they do not consider the characteristics of multi-user surface computing systems. In this paper, we propose an efficient user-based resource scheduling scheme for multi-user surface computing systems, called URS. URS provides three different features to effectively support multi-user surface computing systems. First, URS distributes system resources to users, according to their real-world priorities, rather than processes or tasks. Second, URS provides performance isolation among multiple users to prevent resource monopoly by a single user. Finally, URS prioritizes a foreground application of each user via retaining pages used by the application in the page cache, in order to enhance multi-user experience. Our experimental results confirm that URS effectively allocates system resources to multiple users by providing the aforementioned three features.