1. (a) Describe the possible states of a process and the transitions between them. [4 marks] (b) What is a context switch? Why is it important for the operating system to minimise the number of context switches? [4 marks] (c) Describe two ways of achieving load balancing for scheduling when multiple CPUs are available. [4 marks] (d) Consider a shop which sells music. The website needs to serve three kinds of queries. The first one is a query about available titles, which requires little computation and needs to be answered fast. The second one is a preview of music chosen by the customer. This needs to be generated on demand. This process is computationally intensive but needs to be answered reasonably fast. The third kind of query is downloading whole pieces of music. This is computationally intensive as well but does not need to be answered fast. All computations happen on the same server. Assume that each query generated a new process. Describe a suitable scheduling strategy for such a scenario. Your scheduling strategy should maximise throughput. You should also explain your reasons for choosing this strategy. [8 marks]