Question

In discussing a page replacement algorithm, one author makes an analogy with a snowplow moving around a circular track. Snow is falling uniformly on the track and a lone snowplow continually circles the track at constant speed. The snow that is plowed off the track disappears from the system.

a. For which of the page replacement algorithms discussed in Section 8.2 is this a useful analogy?
b. What does this analogy suggest about the behavior of the page replacement algorithm in question?

Answer 1

Answer and Explanation:

A. The answer to the question is a FIFO page replacement algorithm. In full, this is a first in, first out algorithm. From the question, the snowplow continuously circles the track and it does this at a constant speed.

B. This analogy suggests the removal of the page that was created earliest. Such that by doing so, new pages would be put at the beginning of the list and the page at the tail end would be removed.