Round-robin scheduling

Round-robin scheduling is one of the algorithms used by process and network schedulers in computing. Each process is given a time slice, also called a time quantum, of equal length, and the slices are handed out in circular order so that every process is handled without priority. This arrangement is also known as a cyclic executive. The method is simple, easy to implement and free of starvation, which means no process is kept waiting indefinitely. The same idea can be applied to other scheduling problems, such as scheduling data packets in computer networks, and it is regarded as an operating system concept. The name comes from the round-robin principle known from other fields, where each person takes an equal share of something in turn.