Self-determination for cancellation of in-progress memory removal from a virtual machine

A system comprising:

• a memory having computer readable instructions;
• and
• one or more processors for executing the computer readable instructions, the computer readable instructions controlling the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:
• receiving a request from a requestor to reclaim a portion of a memory assigned to a virtual machine (VM), the memory comprising real memory divided into a plurality of increments;
• predicting an amount of paging space that will be occupied by the VM subsequent to reclaiming the portion of the memory;
• based on the predicted amount of paging space exceeding a threshold, notifying the requestor that the portion of the memory cannot be not reclaimed;
• and
• based on the predicted amount of paging space not exceeding the threshold, initiating a reclamation of the portion of the memory, the reclamation comprising vacating an increment of the plurality of increments and removing an assignment of the increment to the VM.

A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a processor to cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

• receiving a request from a requestor to reclaim a portion of a memory assigned to a virtual machine (VM), the memory comprising real memory divided into a plurality of increments;
• predicting an amount of paging space that will be occupied by the VM subsequent to reclaiming the portion of the memory;
• based on the predicted amount of paging space exceeding a threshold, notifying the requestor that the portion of the memory cannot be not reclaimed;
• and
• based on the predicted amount of paging space not exceeding the threshold, initiating a reclamation of the portion of the memory, the reclamation comprising vacating an increment of the plurality of increments and removing an assignment of the increment to the VM.