US Patent 9465734 Coalition based memory management

One or more memory coalitions of software processes are created and used to decide whether to perform memory reduction operations on a data processing system. One method in one embodiment includes adding a newly launched second process to an existing memory coalition in response to determining that the second process should be part of a memory coalition that includes a first process. In response to determining that available system memory (e.g. DRAM) is low, the system determines which memory coalition of foreground applications uses the most amount of system memory and then performs one or more memory reduction operations on that memory coalition in order to make more system memory available to other processes.