Datasheet

10
CHAPTER 1 WINDOWS SERVER 2008 ARCHITECTURE
Figure 1.5
An operating system’s
kernel isolates hard-
ware from software.
In Figure 1.6, the kernel stack is shown as a program stack, in contrast to the more hardware-
centric illustration shown in Figure 1.5. The central features of the kernel are:
◆
Processor scheduling and threading
◆
Memory access and management
◆ Device I/O, often using device drivers
◆
Synchronization and communications
◆
Interprocess communication (IPC), or the timed management of events
Figure 1.6
The kernel communi-
cates with hardware
through the assembler.
Changes to an operating system’s kernel have a fundamental impact on all application and ser-
vices. Although Microsoft doesn’t advertise kernel changes to the general public, in part because
they are more often used by developers rather than end users, Windows Server 2008 has several
kernel enhancements that will significantly improve the system. Changes were made in Windows
Server 2008 to the following system kernel functions:
◆
Memory and heap management. Memory is allocated from a large pool of available and
unused memory that is called the heap . The heap is managed by indirect reference using a set
of algorithms that organize the memory, allocate memory, and release the memory when it
is no longer needed. Changes to the heap management routines can result in faster perfor-
mance and better reliability. Every so often, Microsoft changes these routines, as is the case
for the Windows Server 2008 and Vista core.
◆ Registry management; new features include performance optimizations, transactional sup-
port for Registry reads and writes, Registry filtering, and a Registry virtualization feature that
can run legacy applications in isolated nonadministrator accounts.
Applications
Kernel
Memory DevicesCPU
kernel
Assembler
Firmware
Hardware
OS and
Applications
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