Memory Management: Process, Fragmentation & Deallocation Video Lecture | Question Bank for GATE Computer Science Engineering - Computer Science Engineering (CSE)

Ans. Memory management in computer science engineering refers to the process of allocating and managing computer memory resources. It involves ensuring that each process in the system has enough memory to execute, optimizing memory usage to improve performance, and handling memory deallocation when a process is no longer in use.

Ans. In memory management, a process refers to a program or application that is currently executing in the system. Each process requires a certain amount of memory to store its instructions, data, and variables. Memory management is responsible for allocating memory space to processes and managing their memory requirements.

Ans. Fragmentation in memory management refers to the phenomenon where memory becomes divided into smaller, non-contiguous blocks over time. There are two types of fragmentation: external fragmentation and internal fragmentation. External fragmentation occurs when free memory blocks are scattered throughout the system, making it challenging to allocate large contiguous blocks of memory. Internal fragmentation occurs when allocated memory blocks contain unused portions, resulting in inefficient memory utilization.

Ans. Memory deallocation in memory management involves freeing up memory that was previously allocated to a process but is no longer needed. When a process terminates or releases memory, the memory management system marks the corresponding memory blocks as available for reuse. This ensures that the freed memory can be allocated to other processes in the future, improving overall memory utilization.

Ans. Some common challenges in memory management include: - Fragmentation: As mentioned earlier, fragmentation can lead to inefficient memory usage and difficulty in allocating contiguous memory blocks. - Memory leaks: Memory leaks occur when a process fails to release memory it no longer needs, leading to a gradual depletion of available memory over time. - Overallocation: Allocating more memory than necessary can result in wasted resources and potential performance issues. - Memory thrashing: Memory thrashing occurs when the system spends a significant amount of time swapping data between physical memory and secondary storage, leading to decreased performance. - Security vulnerabilities: Inadequate memory management can give rise to security vulnerabilities such as buffer overflows, where a process writes data beyond the allocated memory, potentially allowing malicious code to execute.