How do I determine the lower bound for the JVM option Xmx or otherwise economize on memory without a trial and error process? I happen to set Xms and Xmx to be the same amount, which I assume helps to economize on execution time. If I set Xmx to 7G, and likewise Xms, it will happily report that all of it is being used. I use the following query:
Runtime.getRuntime().totalMemory()
If I set it to less than that, say 5GB, likewise all of it will be used. It is not until I provide very much less, say 1GB will there be an out-of-heap exception. Since my execution times are typically 10 hours or more, I need to avoid trial and error processes.
Using Xms256M and Xmx512M, and a trivial program, freeMemory is 244M and totalMemory is 245M and maxMemory is 455M. Using Xms512M and Xmx512M, the amounts are 488M, 490M, and 490M. This suggests that totalMemory is a variable amount that can vary if Xms is less than Xmx. That suggests the answer to the question is to set Xms to a small amount and monitor the highwater mark of totalMemory. It also suggests maxMemory is the ultimate heap size that cannot be exceed by the total of current and future objects.
Once the highwater mark is known, set Xmx to be somewhat more than that to be prudent -- but not excessively more because this is an economization effort -- and set Xms to be the same amount to get the time efficiency that is evidently preferred.