Efficient Main Memory Deduplication Through Cross Layer Integration

Limited main memory size is the primary bottleneck for consolidating VMs. Memory scanners reduce the memory footprint of VMs by eliminating duplicate memory pages. Our approach extends main memory scanners through Cross Layer I/O-based Hints (XLH). Compared to scanners such as KSM, XLH can merge equal pages that stem from the virtual disk image earlier by minutes and is capable of saving up to eight times as much memory, at the same scan-rate.