1. A computer implemented method for modeling memory compression, comprising: receiving a subset of candidate pages from a set of candidate pages used in executing a workload in a data processing system, a candidate page being compressible uncompressed data in a memory associated with the data processing system; compressing the subset of candidate pages in a scratch space; computing a compressibility of the workload based on the compression of the subset of candidate pages; receiving page reference information of the subset of candidate pages; determining a memory reference rate of the workload; and presenting a recommendation about a memory compression model for the workload in the data processing system.