One balloon for all - towards unified baloon driver

During Google Summer of Code 2010 (Migration from memory ballooning to memory hotplug in Xen) it was discovered that in main line Linux Kernel exists 3 balloon driver implementations for 3 virtualization platforms (KVM, Xen, VMware). It quickly came out that they are almost identical but of course they have different controls and API/ABI. In view of e.g. memory hotplug driver which has generic base (not linked with specific hardware/software solution) this situation is not acceptable. The goal of this project is generic balloon driver which could be placed in MM subsystem and which could be linked with as little as possible platform specific code (placed e.g. in relevant arch directory). This solution could give unified ABI (which could ease administration) and unified API for developer (i.e. easier integration with e.g. tmem, memory hotplug, etc.). Additionally, balloon driver behavior would be almost identical on all platforms.

Discussion should outline the goals and key solutions for such driver.

Topic Lead: Daniel Kiper
Daniel was a Google Summer of Code 2010 (memory hotplug/balloon driver) and Google Summer of Code 2011 (kexec/kdump) student. He is involved in *NIX administration/development since 1994. Currently his work and interests focuses on kexec/kdump implementation for Xen.