Memory reduction in a system by oversubscribing physical memory shared by compute entities supported by the system

A system comprising:

• a memory, wherein a portion of the memory comprises a combination of a portion of a first physical memory of a first type and a portion of a logical pooled memory associated with the system, wherein the logical pooled memory is mapped to a second physical memory of the first type, and wherein an amount of the logical pooled memory indicated as being available for allocation to a plurality of compute entities is greater than an amount of the second physical memory of the first type;
• and
• a logical pooled memory controller, coupled to the logical pooled memory associated with the system, configured to:
• (1) track both a status of whether a page of the logical pooled memory allocated to any of the plurality of compute entities is a known-pattern page and a relationship between logical memory addresses and physical memory addresses associated with any allocated logical pooled memory to any of the plurality of compute entities, and (2) in response to a write operation initiated by a compute entity to write any data other than a known pattern, allow the write operation to write the data to any available space in the second physical memory of the first type only up to an extent of physical memory that corresponds to a portion of the logical pooled memory previously allocated to the compute entity.

A system comprising:

• a plurality of host servers configurable to execute one or more of a plurality of compute entities;
• a memory, wherein a portion of the memory comprises a combination of a portion of a first physical memory of a first type and a portion of a logical pooled memory shared among the plurality of host servers, wherein the logical pooled memory is mapped to a second physical memory of the first type, and wherein an amount of the logical pooled memory indicated as being available for allocation to the plurality of compute entities is greater than an amount of the second physical memory of the first type;
• and
• a logical pooled memory controller, coupled to the logical pooled memory associated with the system, configured to:
• (1) track both a status of whether a page of the logical pooled memory allocated to any of the plurality of compute entities is a known-pattern page and a relationship between logical memory addresses and physical memory addresses associated with any allocated logical pooled memory to any of the plurality of compute entities, and (2) in response to a write operation initiated by a compute entity, being executed by a processor associated with any of the plurality of host servers, to write any data other than a known pattern, allow the write operation to write the data to any available space in the second physical memory of the first type only up to an extent of physical memory that corresponds to a portion of the logical pooled memory previously allocated to the compute entity.