Patent ID: 8543790

Claim:
A method for implementation by a resource scheduler component of a hypervisor, the resource scheduler managing a distribution of host physical memory (HPM) among a plurality of virtual machines (VMs) executing by way of a hypervisor on a host computer system, each VM having guest software, the method comprising: monitoring usage by each of the VMs of respective guest physical memories to determine how much of the HPM should be allocated to each of the VMs; on determining that, based on said usage, an amount of HPM allocated to a source VM of the plurality of VMs should be reallocated to a target VM of the plurality of VMs, causing the resource scheduler to: send allocation parameters to a balloon application executing in the source VM causing the balloon application executing in the source VM to reserve and write a value to a guest virtual memory (GVM) location in the source VM, the GVM location being mapped to a guest physical memory (GPM) location, which is mapped to an HPM location; identifying the HPM location; and allocating the HPM location to the target VM by mapping a guest physical memory location of the target VM to the HPM location.