Processes

UNIX, VMS, Windows NT/2000, and most other modern operating systems are multitasking. They can run multiple programs simultaneously, each one running in a separate thread of execution known as a process. On machines with multiple CPUs, the processes running on different CPUs really are executing simultaneously. Processes that are running on single-CPU machines only appear to be running simultaneously because the operating system switches rapidly between them, giving each a small slice of time in which to execute.

Network applications often need to do two or more things at once. For example, a server may need to process requests from several clients at once, or handle a request at the same time that it is watching for new requests. ...

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