"Allocation Failure" is a cause of GC cycle to kick.
"Allocation Failure" means what no more space left in Eden to allocate object. So, it is normal cause of young GC.
Older JVM were not printing GC cause for minor GC cycles.
"Allocation Failure" is almost only possible cause for minor GC. Another reason for minor GC to kick could be CMS remark phase (if +XX:+ScavengeBeforeRemark is enabled).
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/28342736/java-gc-allocation-failure
