Techniques for dynamically changing the amount of memory that is allocated to and used by processes (e.g., sorter processes) executed concurrently by a data processing system in a manner that is adaptive to the overall memory usage of the system. The ability to dynamically change the amount of memory that can be allocated to and used by individual processes increases and optimizes the overall memory utilization of the data processing system, which in turn results in the operations (e.g., sorting) performed by the processes to be performed in a more efficient manner. A memory manager is provided that is responsible for periodically collecting memory related information for the data processing system and for the processes (e.g., sorter processes) executed by the data processing system, and based on the collected information, for periodically and dynamically causing the memory used by the processes to be changed during the lifetime of the processes.