Which technology in vSphere 6 helps improve the speed of memory access by storing compressed pages?

Memory Compression is a feature in vSphere 6 that significantly enhances the speed of memory access by utilizing a technique where the content of memory pages that are not actively in use are compressed and stored in a faster-access memory segment. This allows the virtual machines to have quicker access to their memory data without frequently having to fetch it from disk, thereby reducing latency and improving overall performance.

When memory is under pressure and there is a need for additional capacity, instead of swapping pages to disk, which is much slower, memory compression can be employed. Compressed pages take up less space, allowing more data to remain in physical memory. This results in more efficient memory utilization and faster performance for applications running within virtual machines.

In contrast to this, other options such as ballooning primarily aim to reclaim memory by inducing the guest operating system to release memory pages. Transparent Page Sharing serves to eliminate duplicate copies of memory pages across VMs for efficiency but does not emphasize speed of access or compression. Idle Memory Tax is a mechanism to manage memory by taxing idle memory, motivating VMs to release memory, rather than focusing on speed or compression benefits. Thus, Memory Compression stands out as the technology specifically designed to enhance memory access speed through compression techniques.