Today we'll take a look at the Balloon
Driver (vmmemctl)
The Problem
The VMware Solution
When memory gets tight on an ESX host, the VM kernel will pick a VM (based on shares), and tell the balloon driver to request some memory.
The balloon driver requests memory and “pins” it so it cannot be paged. The Memory on the ESX is then freed up and can be allocated to another system.
On Friday I'll be talking about Memory Test.
There's less than a week to go until our 'VMware Capacity and Performance Essentials' online workshop starts, still time to book your place.
Phil Bell
Consultant
The Problem
A process in
VM1 is shut down and its memory is freed in the OS.
The
“hardware” does not know. The data is
still there but only the OS inside the VM knows it can overwrite it.
The VMware Solution
When memory gets tight on an ESX host, the VM kernel will pick a VM (based on shares), and tell the balloon driver to request some memory.
The balloon driver requests memory and “pins” it so it cannot be paged. The Memory on the ESX is then freed up and can be allocated to another system.
On Friday I'll be talking about Memory Test.
There's less than a week to go until our 'VMware Capacity and Performance Essentials' online workshop starts, still time to book your place.
Phil Bell
Consultant
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