Not really related match to the original question, but may be someone will find it useful. PermGen is indeed an area in memory where Java used to keep its classes. So, many of us have came across OOM in PermGen, if there were, for example a lot of classes.
Since Java 8, PermGen area has been replaced by MetaSpace area, which is more efficient and is unlimited by default (or more precisely - limited by amount of native memory, depending on 32 or 64 bit jvm and OS virtual memory availability) . However it is possible to tune it in some ways, by for example specifying a max limit for the area. You can find more useful information in this blog post.