Fundamentals of Multi-CPU and Multiprocessor Scheduling

Modern software relies on systems with multiple processors, making efficient CPU scheduling essential for application performance. This text-based course guides you from the absolute basics of operating systems to the advanced strategies used to coordinate workloads across multiple cores. You will learn to identify scheduling bottlenecks, manage shared resources, and optimize execution flow. What you'll learn: - Understand foundational multi-CPU scheduling concepts, including symmetric multiprocessing and core terminology. - Analyze cache affinity and its critical impact on system performance and data retrieval speeds. - Apply load balancing techniques to distribute tasks evenly across available processors. - Explore NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Access) aware scheduling and its role in modern high-performance systems. - Compare scheduling strategies for heterogeneous architectures, such as hybrid performance and efficiency cores. Starting with fundamental definitions of hardware threads and cores, the course moves systematically through synchronization challenges, cache coherence, and modern scheduling algorithms. You will engage with clear written explanations, conceptual breakdowns, and practical exercises to solidify your understanding. This course is designed for beginners in systems programming, computer science students, and curious developers with no prior multi-CPU experience. Start reading today to master the inner workings of multiprocessor execution.