The EDL Server for Scheduling Periodic and Soft Aperiodic Tasks with Resource Constraints

In this paper, we are concerned with the problem of serving soft aperiodic tasks on a uniprocessor system where periodic tasks are scheduled on a dynamic-priority, preemptive basis and exclusively access to critical sections. Scheduling of tasks is handled by the Dynamic Priority Ceiling Protocol working with an Earliest Deadline scheduler. Our analysis determines the maximum processing time which may be stolen from periodic tasks without jeopardizing both their timing constraints and resource consistency. It provides the basis for an on-line scheduling algorithm, the EDL Server, to deal with the minimization of response times for soft aperiodic tasks.