PRECISELY TRACKING MEMORY USAGE IN MULTI-PROCESS COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for precisely tracking memory usage in a multi-process computing environment. One of the methods includes implementing an instance of a memory usage tracker (MUT) in each process running in a node of a computer system. A MUT can maintain an account of memory usage for each of multiple logical owners running on a process on which the MUT is running. The MUT can determine an actual memory quota for each owner, and enforce the actual memory quota of the owner. Enforcing the actual memory quota of the owner can include receiving each memory allocation request, checking each allocation request and a current state of the account against the actual quota, approving or rejecting each allocation request, communicating the approval or rejection to an underlying memory manager, and updating the owner account for each approved allocation request.