We ship a Java application whose memory demand can vary quite a lot depending on the size of the data it is processing. If you don't set the max VM (virtual memory) size, quite often the JVM quits with an GC failure on big data.

What we'd like to see, is the JVM requesting more memory, as GC fails to provide enough, until the total available VM is exhausted. e.g., start with 128Mb, and increase geometrically (or some other step) whenever the GC failed.

The JVM ("Java") command line allows explicit setting of max VM sizes (various -Xm* commands), and you'd think that would be designed to be adequate. We try to do this in a .cmd file that we ship with the application. But if you pick any specific number, you get one of two bad behaviors: 1) if your number is small enough to work on most target systems (e.g., 1Gb), it isn't big enough for big data, or 2) if you make it very large, the JVM refuses to run on those systems whose actual VM is smaller than specified.

How does one set up Java to use the available VM when needed, without knowing that number in advance, and without grabbing it all on startup?