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Data · dataset · 2026

Context Switch Time Scalability: Benchmark Results

Listed in National Center for Atmospheric Research

The work a computer system performs to temporarily suspend execution of one process and resume execution of another process is called a context switch.

Description

The time it takes for a computer system to perform a context switch is often cited as an important performance metric. Lengthy context switch time can result in poor performance in process-intensive applications such as distributed servers or interactive systems.

However, context switch time is usually assumed to be constant for a particular system. This document describes a benchmark program which shows that for many systems this is not the case. The program was run on a variety of UNIX��-based systems at NCAR, and the results are given in both tabular and graphical form.

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They show that for many systems, context switch time increases, sometimes dramatically, with the number of concurrent processes running in the system. This non-scalability of context switch times leads to diminishing returns when, for example, upgrading to a faster processor in order to support more interactive users.

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Tabular 75%
Provenance · 1 source records, 8 field assertions
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National Center for Atmospheric Research4e23963b-7b02-4de5-9eb4-54ed335a72b312 d agoJSON v1
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concepts[modality].local:modality:tabularenrichment · data ucar edukeyword-concept-rules@1.0.0title+description (75%)
created_datesource · data ucar educonnector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0
descriptionsource · data ucar educonnector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0/notes
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