Coordinated allocation of external memory

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising a plurality of instructions executable with a processor, the instructions including:

• instructions executable to receive, at a first client device from a component in the first client device, a request to allocate a portion of memory, wherein a memory appliance and the first client device are on a network, and a region of memory of the memory appliance is allocated as external memory prior to receipt of the request to allocate the portion of memory at the first client device, wherein the external memory is external to the first client device and a second client device, but is primary memory to the first client device and the second client device;
• instructions executable to select, by a first client logic within the first client device, in coordination with a second client logic within the second client device and in response to the request to allocate the portion of memory, a subset of the region of memory of the memory appliance, the first client logic being otherwise distinct from the second client logic aside from coordinating with the second client logic in using the memory of the memory appliance;
• and
• instructions executable to map, at the first client device, at least the subset of the region of memory to a virtual address space, wherein data in the portion of the external memory is accessible from the first client device via client-side memory access in which a communication interface of the memory appliance is configured to access the region of memory on the memory appliance,
• wherein selection of the subset of the region of memory in coordination with the second client device is based on a memory-allocation data structure, wherein the memory-allocation data structure is shared with the second client device.