Q. Process migration in a heterogeneous network is typically impossible given the differences in architectures and operating systems. Explain a method for process migration across different architectures running:
a. The similar operating system
b. Dissimilar operating systems
Answer: For the similar operating system process migration is relatively straightforward as the state of the process requires migrating from one processor to another. This engages moving the address space state of the CPU registers as well as open files from the source system to the destination.
Nevertheless it is significant that identical copies of the operating system are running on the different systems to ensure compatibility.
If the operating systems are the similar however perhaps different versions are running on the separate systems then migrating processes should be sure to follow programming guidelines that are consistent between the different versions of the operating system.
Java applets provide a nice illustration of process migration between different operating systems. To hide dissimilarities in the underlying system the migrated process (that is a Java applet) runs on a virtual machine rather than a specific operating system.