Systems and Methods for Quota Management in a Memory Appliance

An thinly provisioned computing system, the computing system comprising:

• a network switch;
• at least two or more processors each communicably coupled to the network switch, wherein the two or more processors together have an aggregate memory quota;
• and
• a memory appliance communicably coupled to the at least two or more processors via the network switch, wherein the memory appliance includes a bank of memory of a memory size, and wherein the memory size is less than the aggregate memory quota.

A method for allocating a shared memory resource between multiple virtual machines, the method comprising:

• providing a memory appliance, wherein the memory appliance includes a randomly accessible memory space of a memory size;
• communicably coupling two or more processors to the memory appliance via a network interface, wherein the two or more processors together have an aggregate memory quota that is greater than the memory size;
• allocating a first portion of the randomly accessible memory space to a first of the two or more processors;
• allocating a second portion of the randomly accessible memory space to a second of the two or more processors;
• receiving a request for a third portion of the randomly accessible memory space;
• and
• allocating a third portion of the randomly accessible memory space to a third of the two or more processors, wherein the aggregate of the first portion, the second portion and the third portion is greater than the memory size, and wherein allocating the third portion of the randomly accessible memory space includes de-allocating at least a portion of the first portion.