memoryvirtualization

Memory virtualization is a technique that abstracts the physical memory of a computer system, presenting a unified, contiguous memory space to individual applications or virtual machines. This abstraction is managed by a hypervisor or the operating system's memory manager. It allows for more efficient use of available RAM by pooling it and allocating it dynamically as needed.

One of the primary benefits of memory virtualization is its ability to support more applications or virtual machines than the physical RAM would otherwise allow. This is achieved through techniques like memory overcommitment, where the total memory allocated to all processes exceeds the physical RAM. When physical memory becomes scarce, less frequently used memory pages can be swapped out to secondary storage, such as a hard drive or SSD. This process is known as paging or swapping.

Memory virtualization also enhances security by isolating the memory spaces of different processes or virtual machines. This prevents one application from accessing or corrupting the memory of another, thus mitigating certain types of exploits and crashes. Furthermore, it simplifies memory management for developers, as they don't need to be concerned with the underlying physical memory layout. Instead, they can work with a larger, more consistent virtual address space. Technologies like memory deduplication can also be employed within virtualized environments to reduce overall memory footprint by identifying and sharing identical memory pages.