In
computing, a
system resource, or simply
resource, is any physical or virtual component of limited availability within a computer system. Every device connected to a computer system is a resource. Every internal system component is a resource. Virtual system resources include
files (concretely
file handles), network connections (concretely
network sockets), and memory areas. Managing resources is referred to as
resource management, and includes both preventing
resource leaks (releasing a resource when a process has finished using it) and dealing with
resource contention (when multiple processes wish to access a limited resource).