Ballooned memory has triggered inside the Guest OS of the VM due to misconfigured Resource Pool settings
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Ballooned memory has triggered inside the Guest OS of the VM due to misconfigured Resource Pool settings

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Article ID: 419240

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Updated On:

Products

VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

  • The affected VM triggered the "VM memory usage" alarm due to an abrupt and spiking memory utilization.
  • The Memory Utilization percentage within the VM's Guest Operating System may show peak values that are higher than the actual utilization.
  • Upon validating performance charts for Ballooned memory values by navigating the below path, it may show a high Ballooned memory value.

    VM > Monitor > Performance > Advanced > View > Memory     and review the value for Ballooned memory



  • The VM's memory utilization may show a peak of, or nearly, 100% though the underlying host or cluster reports resources to be available.
  • A vMotion or power cycle of the VM may provide only temporary relief while the issue is likely to re-manifest within a short period.

Environment

vSphere 

Cause

This issue is triggered due to Incorrect settings such as Reservation, Limit, or Shares at the VM or Resource Pool level.

Resolution

Step 1: Identify the settings at Resource Pool level

  1. Navigate to the affected Resource Pool in the vSphere Client.

  2. Go to Resource Pool -> Actions - > Edit Resource Settings and validate below highlighted settings.



  3. Review the Limit field. If it is set to a specific value other than "Unlimited", this is the cause.

  4. Review the Reservation field. Ensure the Reservation is not constraining the pool's resources.



Step 2: Identify the settings at Virtual Machine level

After correcting the Resource Pool settings, check the individual VMs that are show casing Ballooned Memory value

  1. Right-click the affected VM > Edit Settings.

  2. Navigate to VM Options > Resources > Memory.

  3. Ensure the Limit, Reservation and Shares values on the individual VM is set to Unlimited. 

 

Additional Information

https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/vsphere/vsphere-sdks-tools/8-0/web-services-sdk-programming-guide/resource-management/creating-and-configuring-resource-pools/configuring-reservation-and-limit-for-resource-pools.html 

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