Automatic page promotion and demotion in multiple page size environments

A computer program product for managing page promotion and demotion, the computer program product comprising:

• a computer usable medium having computer usable program code embodied therewith, the computer usable program code comprising:
• computer usable program code configured to,
• detect a page request associated with first of a plurality of processes;
• allocate, in response to the page request, a first page to the first of the plurality of processes;
• determine that a page size indicated in the page request is smaller than a page size of the first page;
• divide the first page into a plurality of smaller pages;
• create a broken page list indicating availability of each of the plurality of smaller pages;
• associate the broken page list with a memory segment accessible by the first of the plurality of processes, wherein the smaller pages are only available for use by the first of the plurality of processes;
• and
• satisfy the page request with a first of the plurality of smaller pages.

A computer program product for managing page promotion and demotion, the computer program product comprising:

• a computer usable medium having computer usable program code embodied therewith, the computer usable program code comprising:
• computer usable program code configured to,
• determine that a process is terminating;
• determine that a memory segment accessible by the process is associated with a broken page list, wherein the broken page list indicates availability of a plurality of pages that constitute a first page;
• dissociate the broken page list from the memory segment;
• and
• update a free list to indicate that the first page is available.

An apparatus comprising:

• a processing unit;
• a network interface;
• and
• a virtual memory manger operable to,
• detect a page request associated with a first of a plurality of processes;
• allocate, in response to the page request, a first page to the first of a plurality processes;
• determine that a page size indicated in the page request is smaller than a page size of the first page;
• divide the first page into a plurality of smaller pages;
• create a broken page list indicating availability of each of the plurality of smaller pages;
• associate the broken page list with a memory segment accessible by the first of the plurality of processes;
• and
• satisfy the page request with a first of the plurality of smaller pages.