When monitoring high ballooning activity in a VM, which section should the administrator check in the Advanced Performance pane?

When monitoring high ballooning activity in a virtual machine (VM), the administrator should check the Memory section in the Advanced Performance pane. Ballooning is a memory reclamation technique used by hypervisors to manage memory resources efficiently. It occurs when the hypervisor instructs a VM to "give up" some of its allocated memory so that it can be redistributed to other VMs that are experiencing memory pressure.

In this context, the Memory section provides essential insights into the memory utilization of the VM, including metrics related to ballooned memory, which directly reflects the effectiveness of the memory management strategy. Monitoring this area helps the administrator understand if the VM is under memory stress and how much memory has been reclaimed due to ballooning.

Evaluating this section enables the administrator to take necessary actions, such as resizing the VM's resources or adjusting the allocation of memory among VMs, ensuring optimal performance and resource utilization within the environment. Other sections, such as Power, Network, and Virtual disk, focus on different aspects of a VM’s performance and do not provide pertinent information about ballooning activity.