Multicore Specification Generation System
Chapter One
Objective of the Study
The main objectives of this work are:
- To develop an application that would help all the computer user to automatically extract system parameters
- Determine the main causes of overhead on the multicore environment.
- To apply the necessary measures/changes to make a better use of the hardware resources and therefore obtain a better performance.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
Multicore is the new trend in computer world. As technology advances more cores are built to enhance system speed, functionality, efficiency and dependency. In the era of single processor, most computers were slow and there was a heavy limitation to file processing and other data manipulations. Dual core systems also produced undesirable power consumption and as result alternative research has encouraged the production of multicore systems. System specification is an area in which some average computer literates find difficult to handle. Many people don’t know how to check their system configuration. This project presents a platform that will allow a novice to perform such activity.
The various system specification categories have been listed earlier and we are more interested on the technology used in developing them in this section.
Theoretical Background
AutoSpec is a software package developed in this project work to help analyse the configuration of a computer system. The software makes life easier for users who may be clamouring to know the stuff their system units are made up of. It takes above average computer literate to locate where most of computer specification are hidden.
C# programming language was used to build this application. The system is actually a desktop application meaning that it can be installed on any PC and ran as a standalone software. It is not an internet based software in that no internet connection is needed to use it. The technology used in this project work is based on system management feature of Microsoft .Net framework. This program makes use of Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) infrastructure to explore the system properties. In .Net framework System.Management namespace handle anything concerning system properties. Management Namespace provides access to a rich set of management information and management events about the system, devices, and applications instrumented to the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) infrastructure. Applications and services can query for management information (such as how much free space is left on the disk, what is the current CPU utilization, which database a certain application is connected to, and much more), using classes derived from ManagementObjectSearcher and ManagementQuery, or subscribe to a variety of management events using the ManagementEventWatcher class. The accessible data can be from both managed and unmanaged components in the distributed environment.
One powerful class in the System. Management namespace used in this project work is Management Object Searcher. It retrieves a collection of management objects based on a specified query. This class is one of the more commonly used entry points to retrieving management information. For example, it can be used to enumerate all disk drives, network adapters, processes and many more management objects on a system, or to query for all network connections that are up, services that are paused, and so on. When instantiated, an instance of this class takes as input a WMI query represented in an ObjectQuery or its derivatives, and optionally a ManagementScope representing the WMI namespace to execute the query in. It can also take additional advanced options in an EnumerationOptions. When the Get () method on this object is invoked, the ManagementObjectSearcher executes the given query in the specified scope and returns a collection of management objects that match the query in a ManagementObjectCollection. The ManagementObjectSearcher type exposes the following members.
Chapter Three
System Analysis and Design
Introduction
With computers playing an increasingly critical role in our day-to-day lives, it is important to know their components and how each works and of what impact they impose on performance of the computer system.
Computer performance is characterised by the amount of useful work accomplished by a computer system compared to time and resources used. Depending on the context, good computer performance is dependent on the available system resources. Most computer users do not know the system specification, they lack the knowledge of conventional way of extracting system parameters. This is the core issue addressed in this thesis (Otherwise known as Autospec) every computer users will be able to determine the system configuration by installing and running the software.
The System development can be likened to building a house, this demands adequate planning and preparation in order to meet the objectives of the proposed design.
The parameters or the resources that are of interest in our analysis include the followings:
- Summary
- Operating system
- CPU
- RAM
- Hard drive
- Optical drives
- Motherboard
- Graphics
- Network
- Audio
- Peripheral
- Performance
Description of Existing System
What’s in your computer? Most people can probably name the processor (Intel or AMD, Celeron or Pentium), maybe how much RAM it has, and maybe how big the hard drive is.
The computer stores display many bright shiny PCs laid out next to each other, most will have tags or stickers indicating the:
- Processor brand and model
- Hard drive size and speed
- Amount of memory (RAM)
- Graphics card
- Operating system etc
Some years later, when you need to upgrade your computer, that tag or sticker may be long gone.
The problem with the current/existing system is that. Some of the basic information can be found by right-clicking my Computer and then clicking Properties. The General tab lists some statistics, and the Device Manager on the Hardware tab lists all of the hardware you have installed. But it misses out lots of information that you need and much time is spent hunting around window sourcing for these information. Such as graphic card, motherboard type etc.
Chapter Four
System Implementation
Introduction
Implementation is the realization of an application, or execution of a plan, idea, model, design, specification, standard, algorithm, or policy. Systems implementation is concerned with the construction of the new system and the delivery of that system into production (that is, the day-to-day business or organization operation).In software development, system implementation covers choice of programming language used, the development environment, software testing and documentation.
The AutoSpec software was implemented with Visual Studio 2010 (the best Integrated Development – IDE). The IDE has so many things in it. The C# compiler is there, the MS SQL server and other tools.
Chapter Five
Summary and Conclusion
Summary
AutoSpec is an application that helps both experts and novice to retrieve system specification without having to move from application to another. AutoSpec has the whole system properties in one place and therefore helps the analysts to have full view of what the system is made up of.
One of the greatest achievements of this application is that a novice can see the stuff a PC is made of without being taught how to do so. In traditional system specifications, one has to move from one part of the system, from one application of the system to another just to get different information about the system. This application has made it possible to get the whole information with just a click of the mouse.
Another achievement of the application is its ability to analyse system performance, detect why the system is slow, and suggest some important things to be done in order to fix them. The application equally shows all the running programs and background processes in the system and how they affect the performance of such system.
The application is a light weight one so it matches any system running it.
Conclusion
System specification is one thing that a user of a PC finds difficult in viewing and analysing. In fact majority of computer users don’t even know where to view the system specification. This application has brought together every basic information a user needs to know about a personal computer. With the achievements of this project work, it can be concluded that this software application is what computer users need to analyse their systems and get full information on the system specifications and performance without having to bring in computer experts.
Recommendations
Research work is a continuous process and many things can be added to an existing system and the addition becomes a research on its own. Due to the numerous benefits in this software application and its openness to improvement, we hereby recommend that:
- Computer users should be advised to use the application.
- Students should be taught system analysis and computer maintenance so as to be able to improve this work as technologies change/improve.
REFERENCES
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