OKAM: A Linux Application Manager Based on Hierarchical Freezing Technology

In the context of resource contention and scarcity, ensuring the smooth operation of focus application in the system has always been a challenging yet vital issue faced by operating systems. Traditional Linux mechanisms cannot accurately understand user's intention and lack automatic resource monitoring and management tool. In this paper, we propose OKAM, a Linux application manager based on hierarchical freezing technology. OKAM can classify the applications into hierarchy based on different application runtime states and user's intention, and automatically monitor and adjust the allocation of application resources based on system workload pressure. Experimental results demonstrate that OKAM is able to effectively ensure the fast startup and smooth operation of user's focus application under high CPU, memory, or I/O pressure, significantly reducing application startup time by 76%, 62%, and 73%, respectively.