Analysis of Memory Ballooning Technique for Dynamic Memory Management of Virtual Machines (VMs)

Abstract

Memory ballooning is dynamic memory management technique for virtual machines (VMs). Ballooning is a part of memory reclamation technique operations used by a hypervisor to allow the physical host system to retrieve unused memory from certain guest virtual machines (VMs) and share it with others. Memory ballooning allows the total amount of RAM required by guest VMs to exceed the amount of physical RAM available on the host. Memory overcommitment enables a higher consolidation ratio in a hypervisor. Using memory overcommitment, users can consolidate VMs on a physical machine such that physical resources are utilized in an optimal manner while delivering good performance. Hence memory reclamation is an integral component of memory overcommitment. In this paper, we address that the basic cause of memory that ballooning is memory overcommitment from using memory-intensive virtual machines. We compared to others reclamation technique and identify Cost Associate with Memory Ballooning in state of Memory Overcommitment. The objective of this paper is to analyse memory ballooning technique for dynamic memory management of VMs. For this analysis, VMware based virtualization software, e.g., ESXi Server, vCenter Server, vSphere Client are installed and configured on the Centre for Innovation and Technology (CIT) Lab, DIU; for monitor and analyze VM performance for memory ballooning technique. The performance of memory ballooning technique is evaluated with two different test cases. The purpose is to help users understand, how this technique impact the performance. Finally, we presents the throughput of heavy workload with different memory limits when using ballooning or swapping; and analyse VM performance issue for this technique.