Garbage collection in constrained local environments

Abstract

Embodiments control garbage collection priority based on both a local memory pressure and a global memory pressure. The local pressure represents volatile memory usage in a container or other isolation unit residing on a machine, and the global pressure represents volatile memory usage in the machine overall. The machine is a device or a virtual machine containing one or more isolation units. Each isolation unit has a low threshold and a high threshold, and the machine has its own low threshold and its own high threshold. Garbage collection execution priority is set to low, normal, or high, depending on the memory pressures and the thresholds. By basing garbage collection timing and performance on both local pressure and global pressure, embodiments optimize garbage collection efficiency, especially in memory overcommitment scenarios.