Memory usage in managed runtime applications

Abstract

Live objects in heap memory exceeding a threshold size and that have not been recently accessed are compressed or offloaded to secondary memory or storage. Compressing or offloading an object can further be based on how old the object is, which can be determined based on how many garbage collections the object has survived. Objects comprising references to other objects can be split into two sub-objects, one containing value fields that is compressed or offloaded and one containing reference fields that remains uncompressed in heap memory. Heap memory can undergo compaction after objects are compressed or offloaded. Compression accelerators can be used for compression and the decision of whether to compress or offload an object can be based on accelerator throughput, latency, availability, as well as other computing system metrics or characteristics. The compressing and offloading of objects and subsequent compaction can make more heap memory available for object allocation.