Virtual machine memory removal increment selection

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 to reclaim a portion of a memory assigned to a virtual machine (VM), the memory divided into a plurality of increments, each increment having a corresponding failure count that indicates a number of failures associated with any previous attempts to vacate the increment;
• in response to receiving the request, selecting an increment of the plurality of increments to vacate, the selecting based at least in part on the failure counts corresponding to each of the plurality of increments;
• attempting to vacate all contents of the selected increment;
• based at least in part on determining that all contents of the selected increment were not vacated, incrementing a failure count corresponding to the selected increment, the failure count one of the plurality of failure counts;
• and
• based at least in part on determining that all contents of the selected increment were vacated, removing an assignment of the selected 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 to reclaim a portion of a memory assigned to a virtual machine (VM), the memory divided into a plurality of increments, each increment having a corresponding failure count that indicates a number of failures associated with any previous attempts to vacate the increment;
• in response to receiving the request, selecting a memory increment of the plurality of memory increments to vacate, the selecting based at least in part on the failure counts corresponding to each of the plurality of memory increments;
• attempting to vacate all contents of the selected memory increment;
• based at least in part on determining that all contents of the selected memory increment were not vacated, incrementing a failure count corresponding to the selected increment, the failure count one of the plurality of failure counts;
• and
• based at least in part on determining that all contents of the selected increment were vacated, removing an assignment of the selected increment to the VM.