Which vSphere technology would likely improve performance when virtual machines are under heavy memory demand?

Ballooning is a memory management technique that can significantly improve performance when virtual machines (VMs) are under heavy memory demand. This process involves a component called the balloon driver, which is installed in the guest operating system of the VM. When the ESXi host is running low on memory, it can instruct the balloon driver to allocate memory back to the host.

The balloon driver "inflates" by consuming memory from the VM, effectively reducing the amount of physical memory allocated to it. This allows the host to reclaim memory and allocate it to other VMs that may need it more urgently, thus balancing resource usage across all VMs and preventing any single VM from starving due to limited memory.

By using ballooning, the performance of VMs can be enhanced because it allows the host to manage memory resources dynamically based on demand, rather than letting a memory shortage lead to performance degradation or even the need to power off some VMs. Overall, ballooning helps maintain performance levels during peak memory usage periods.

Other technologies, like memory compression and transparent page sharing, also deal with memory optimization but do so in different ways, focusing on efficient utilization rather than direct reclamation. These methods can be beneficial but may not respond to heavy memory demand as proactively