Management of low-paging space conditions in an operating system

A method comprising:

• determining that content is to be written from physical memory of a computer system to a first segment of paging space that is associated with at least a first number of pages of a first page size supported by an operating system of the computer system;
• determining that a number of unallocated pages of the first page size is less than a page threshold, wherein the page threshold corresponds to insufficient unallocated paging space available to the operating system;
• determining that a first number of unallocated contiguous pages of a second page size supported by the operating system is less than a page conversion factor that indicates a number of pages of the second page size that is equivalent to one page of the first page size;
• determining that at least one process to which at least a second number of allocated pages of the second page size is allocated cannot be identified, wherein the second number corresponds to a difference between the page conversion factor and the first number of unallocated pages of the second page size, wherein the second number of allocated pages are contiguous with the first number of unallocated pages;
• compressing the content to fit within a second segment of the paging space that is smaller than the first segment of the paging space;
• and
• writing the compressed content from the physical memory to the second segment of the paging space that is smaller than the first segment of the paging space.

A computer program product for management of low paging space conditions, the computer program product comprising:

• a computer readable storage medium having computer usable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code configured to:
• determine that a number of unallocated pages of a first page size supported by an operating system is less than a page threshold, wherein the page threshold corresponds to insufficient unallocated paging space available to the operating system;
• determine that a first number of unallocated contiguous pages of a second page size supported by the operating system is less than a page conversion factor that indicates a number of pages of the second page size that is equivalent to one page of the first page size;
• identify at least one process to which at least a second number of allocated pages of the second page size is allocated, wherein the second number corresponds to a difference between the page conversion factor and the first number, wherein the allocated pages are contiguous with the unallocated contiguous pages;
• reorganize the allocated pages of the second page size to de-allocate the allocated pages from the at least one process;
• and
• aggregate the allocated pages of the second page size with the unallocated contiguous pages of the second page size to create at least a first unallocated page of the first page size.

A system comprising:

• a processor;
• a network interface coupled with the processor;
• a virtual memory management unit coupled with the network interface and the processor, the virtual memory management unit operable to:
• determine that a number of unallocated pages of a first page size supported by an operating system is less than a page threshold, wherein the page threshold corresponds to insufficient unallocated paging space available to the operating system;
• determine that a first number of unallocated contiguous pages of a second page size supported by the operating system is less than a page conversion factor that indicates a number of pages of the second page size that is equivalent to one page of the first page size;
• identify at least one process to which at least a second number of allocated pages of the second page size is allocated, wherein the second number corresponds to a difference between the page conversion factor and the first number, wherein the allocated pages are contiguous with the unallocated contiguous pages;
• reorganize the allocated pages of the second page size to de-allocate the allocated pages from the at least one process;
• and
• aggregate the allocated pages of the second page size with the unallocated contiguous pages of the second page size to create at least a first unallocated page of the first page size.