Method and apparatus for processor sharing

A method and apparatus for implementing proportional sharing in a single processor system and/or in a multi-processor system. The invention can also implement proportional sharing in a system that executes multi-threaded computer programs. The invention uses the metaphor of "tickets." Each process in the system has a number of tickets and each ticket entitles the process to use a processor for a period of a time quantum. The operating system allocates the processor(s) first to the process with the highest number of tickets. As each process (or thread) finishes being executed for a predetermined amount of time, the tickets of that process/thread are adjusted accordingly and a new process (or thread) is chosen for execution. Tickets can be allocated to each process in the system. Alternatively, tickets can be allocated to each process and shared by all threads of the process. Alternatively, tickets can be allocated to a group of processes and shared by all processes within the group.