Recently, I was in discussion with a Java user at a bank about the possibilities of using Azul Platform Core to run a range of applications.  One of the most significant advantages for mission-critical enterprise applications is knowing that you have access to the latest security patches and bug fixes.  With Platform Core, these are […]

Azul Systems is happy to announce a major change for the way that we bill for our Java platforms. Going forward, Azul will use a capacity-based pricing structure, billing based on the processor power of the server rather than the count of servers. The metric we use is vCore.  A vCore, also known as Virtual Core or […]

Open source has become a fundamental part of how we develop software.  Freely reusing source code from other developers, not having to continually reinvent the wheel and write code that has been written many times before, has had a profound impact on aspects such as reliability and productivity. When using open-source software, it is essential […]

Today, Microsoft announced its plans for the new Microsoft Build of OpenJDK. As a long time Microsoft partner and as a key provider of Java technologies powering Azure, Azul welcomes this step and congratulates Microsoft on their evolution in OpenJDK contribution and collaboration. With their upcoming builds, Microsoft is joining a rich community of ongoing […]

How time flies!  Even in these extraordinary times, it seems hard to believe another six months have passed, and we now have a new release of the JDK.  As usual, I will summarise all the new features with some commentary on their potential impact on Java application development. Not all releases are created equal and, […]

Happy New Year, everyone!  For the last few years, I’ve written a blog post at the start of each year with my predictions for what will happen in the following twelve months focused on Java.  Now that we have settled into the safe, predictable six-month release cadence for Java SE, this seems a bit redundant. […]

Part 1 of the Java Performance series discussed why Low Latency is Critical and its effect on application performance. In that article, the relationship between latency and application performance is discussed with respect to some of the causes of latency (network issues, disk I/O, operating system, the application code). Also, the problem of high tail […]

Measuring the popularity of programming languages is never going to be simple.  We often see the results of surveys that have been conducted by various companies or organisations that seem to include headline-grabbing conclusions.  Of course, as the famous saying goes, “There are lies, damn lies and statistics”.  The same applies to surveys.  Results can […]

The Java heap is the area of memory used to store objects instantiated by applications running on the JVM. Objects in the heap can be shared between threads. Many users restrict the Java heap size to 2-8 GB in order to minimize garbage collection pauses. Types of Applications where Heap Size Matters In-Memory Computing NoSQL […]

A lot has changed since Java and the JVM were created in the mid-1990s. The invention of Java solved an important problem that caused developers to spend enormous time coping with memory problems, memory leaks. Java and the JVM solved that problem, enabling Java developers to focus more on accomplishing the objective the software was […]

In the world of High-Frequency Trading, automated applications process hundreds of millions of market signals every day and send back thousands of orders on various exchanges around the globe. In order to remain competitive, the reaction time must consistently remain in microseconds, especially during unusual peaks such as a “black swan” event. In a typical […]

How quickly six months pass.  It only seems like yesterday we were talking about JDK 14, records, pattern matching for instanceof and helpful NullPointerExceptions, yet here we are with JDK 15 delivered and ready to go.  As usual, I’ll look at all the new features and APIs included in this release. As a release, it […]

We commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a study describing how innovative technology companies utilized Azul Platform Prime to reduce hardware expenses, increase the performance and scalability of JVM applications, and reduce the amount of effort their development teams need to expend on debugging JVM-related problems. The study found that the total economic impact from utilizing […]

Java has a fairly long history, which is well-documented in Simon Ritter’s article A Quarter of a Century of Java. While Java’s history hasn’t the time span of languages like FORTRAN, COBOL, BASIC, and C, it has encompassed a series of adventures that did not happen with the other languages. In other words, Java has […]

A little over a year ago, in April 2019, the way most Java users accessed updates for the JDK changed.  The reason for this was a combination of changes made by Oracle to how the JDK is developed and the licensing terms of the Oracle JDK. The Oracle JDK 11 and Oracle JDK 8 (from […]

Advantages of Microservices Architecture  Software development is always changing and, today, we see a clear shift to the use of a microservices architecture.  There are a number of clear advantages to this approach, but let’s look at two of the most significant: Simplified deployment into the cloud. The use of containers like Docker encapsulates all […]

As Java turned 25 in May 2020, it was going through changes which had nothing to do with the pandemic but everything to do with Oracle. Until 2019, Oracle allowed its JDK to be used for free for commercial purposes. Oracle had provided all Java users with free updates, and sold licenses to customers for […]

February 12th, 1996.  This is a significant date for me personally since it was the day I started work at Sun Microsystems as a Solaris Systems Engineer.  It was also two weeks and six days after the release of the Java Development Kit (JDK 1.0).  Of course, the origins of Java go further back than […]

Java continues to vie for first place as the most popular platform for software development in the world.  The power of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) extends the platform’s appeal to applications developed in a variety of languages other than Java, like Scala, Kotlin and Clojure. Almost every company from the Fortune 100 to SMEs […]

Java is a well-maintained development and deployment platform.  Through the OpenJDK project, regular updates to production releases follow a traditionally established schedule.  On a specific Tuesday in January, April, July and October, a set of updates are published covering security-related issues as well as bug fixes and even minor enhancements.  Regular updates have been a […]

Keeping your computer safe from malicious software is no easy task.  There are different approaches to solving this problem, many of which take the antivirus approach of scanning a machine looking for files with fingerprints that indicate malware.  An alternative approach is that taken by Apple, which uses software called Gatekeeper to enforce code signing […]

Last update: June 11, 2020 To all Azul customers, partners, and friends, Please accept our best wishes during this difficult time. We will be posting regular updates to this page to ensure that our operational status is always available for your review. As of the date of this update, all Azul operations (Engineering, Support, Finance, Sales […]

Well, another six months have passed, and we have another release of Java, this one pretty packed with exciting new features.  It is, therefore, time for another blog post trying to list everything new in JDK 14. In total, there are a very impressive 16 JDK Enhancement Proposals (JEPs) and 69 new API elements. Let’s […]

To all Azul Systems customers, partners, and friends; Please accept our best wishes during this difficult time. Across the company we are monitoring developments closely regarding the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19). Since the start of the crisis we have been taking all necessary steps to ensure that we continue to provide you with the […]

Last week, Azul issued a press release announcing that London-based Vitruvian Partners and New York-based Lead Edge Capital are making a majority investment in the company. Azul’s mission has always been to deliver the best Java possible. Initially, this was focused on solving the issues associated with garbage collection and the non-deterministic pauses that can […]

Today we are announcing the general availability of Zulu Mission Control (ZMC) release 7.1. ZMC is Azul’s build of the open source JDK Mission Control product that is used for profiling and analysis of JVM-based applications. Zulu Mission Control enables developers and operations teams to gain critical insights into how their applications are performing. When […]

Updating Java has changed. In January 2019, the last public updates (for commercial users) of both Oracle JDK 8 and the Oracle OpenJDK JDK 11 were released. Non-commercial users, for example, those people running Java on their PCs at home to play Minecraft, will continue to get Oracle JDK 8 updates through the Java Control […]

Happy New Year! As we enter the new decade, I decided it was time to write my now annual blog post giving my thoughts on what this year might hold for Java. I’ll also look back on my predictions in the last post to see how accurate (or not) I was. Obviously, the most significant […]

It’s now over two years since the release of JDK 9 and, with it, the switch to a time-based rather than feature-based release schedule. It seems incredible that it took very nearly eleven years to get from JDK 6 to JDK 9, yet in just over two years we’ve gone from JDK 9 to JDK […]

  There is a simple reality in computing, which is that accessing data from memory is significantly faster than from disk. It’s just physics. Hard disk drives spin and use a moving head to read and write data to the disk via changes in the magnetic field. Despite high spin speeds and small heads, there […]

It’s now been a little over two years since Oracle announced it was making some significant changes to the way the Java platform is developed, distributed and updated. This was just before the release of JDK 9 and the fact that the current release is JDK 13 shows how quickly Java is now changing. The […]

I recently noticed that Applets are now, to use a Monty Python analogy, the Norwegian Blue of client-side development. If you go all the way back to when Java was being developed, it was an Applet that caught everyone’s attention. In early 1995, John Gage, Director of Sun Microsystems’ Science Office was heading to Monterey […]

We are now well into the new six-month release cadence of the JDK and, with the release of JDK 13, it is clearly working successfully. One thing that is obvious, is that, whilst the overall rate of change for the Java platform has increased, individual releases will have less new features. This is the case […]

The Zing Virtual Machine (ZVM) has been developed to address the performance-related issues that result from a managed runtime environment that is provided by the JVM. These fall into two specific areas: Application response latency caused by the garbage collector (GC) pausing application threads to perform its work. Reduced initial throughput when an application is […]

Keeping Java production systems secure and up-to-date can be an operational challenge. There’s always a balance between disrupting operations and reducing the risk of vulnerabilities. No time is that trade-off more apparent than the third Tuesday of January, April, July and October when the steward of Java releases new updates. Java has been updated on […]

For those of you old enough to remember the film, Marathon Man, there’s a famous scene with the quote, “Is it safe?” Azul has just ensured that the answer to that question is yes when posed about running an application on Java SE 8 that transfers data across a network. In a networked environment, it […]

Although Java started life targeted at desktops, its popularity has really grown to dominate the server and subsequently cloud spaces. Many people would dismiss Java on the desktop, but you would be surprised at the number of people and organisations still using it. The reality of “Write once, run anywhere” dramatically simplifies the deployment of […]

TechRepublic recently published an article about languages that developers love and those that they hate. This produced an interesting set of results since Java was the third most loved language as well as the second most hated. Clearly, Java, as a language, polarises opinion. When I tweeted about this, I got one reply which quoted […]

  There was an interesting discussion on the Java Champions alias recently under the title, “Fear of Java”. The initial post was related to a University faculty that was evaluating which version of Java to use. Given the issue that it brought up, I thought it was worth discussing in a blog post. I’ll quote […]

It occurred to me recently that I had just passed a substantial milestone in my career. I started working for Sun Microsystems in February 1996 but, at that time, with Java being so new my role was to help drive adoption of Solaris on Intel with major ISVs like Oracle, Informix and Lotus Notes (hands […]

  Four big things are happening in April 2019 that I can think of right now: On the 25th we have the release of Avengers: Endgame. For anyone who’s a Marvel fan, this is big news, especially the way that Avengers: Infinity War ended. I think it’s going to take some pretty creative writing to […]

I’ve written several blog posts that list out all the changes for each of the most recent releases of Java (JDK 10, JDK 11). With JDK 12 just having been released, it seemed the obvious thing to produce another blog in this series. I’ll be doing the flip side of this later, which is the […]

Around the middle of the 15th century, Johannes Gutenberg introduced the metal movable-type printing press. I think it would be easy to argue that this was one of the most significant inventions in history for enabling widespread access to information; something today we take very much for granted. The metal type pieces of Gutenberg’s press […]

Java Updates topic is of particular significance to both Java developers and users. The reason was the release of update 202 of Oracle JDK 8, which was the final public update (for commercial users) of JDK 8 from Oracle. Users now need to think carefully about their strategy for updating the Java runtime in the […]

Happy New Year everyone! For the last two years, I’ve started with a blog post (2017 link, 2018 link) giving my predictions for what will happen in the world of Java in the next twelve months. I saw no reason not to start this year in the same way. Overall, from a technical perspective, I […]

When Java was first launched, in 1995, the thing that made it really stand out was its ability to add an animation to a web page (good old tumbling Duke). Thinking about how we interact with devices today makes that sound ridiculous but, for those of us old enough to remember this, it was something […]

Earlier this year, Oracle announced that it was “enhancing” the traditional JavaOne conference. Personally, I found this a rather odd way of describing the changes that they had planned. Essentially, Oracle had decided to abandon the Java-only aspect of the conference and add content on several other languages (like Python and Javascript) as well as […]

The world of Java is going through something of a change at the moment; specifically in the area of how people get updates to the Java Development Kit (JDK) to provide stability (bug fixes) and security (patches). Last week we had the release of JDK 11 including, by my count, some 90 new features and […]

The new six-month release cadence of the JDK means before we’ve even really figured out what the new features are in JDK 10, along comes JDK 11. I posted an earlier blog where I listed all 109 new features and APIs I could find in JDK 10, so it seemed obvious to do the same […]

As the Azul alternate representative on the JCP Executive Committee (EC), I get to attend all the EC meetings and take part in the various discussions. One topic that the EC has been devoting a lot of energy to recently is the adoption of the Java platform, post-JDK 8. Ordinarily, this would be a discussion […]

It has become clear to me, having spoken to many developers at many different events and seen recent postings on sites like Reddit, that there is still a lot of confusion about how the JDK will be delivered and updated in the future. In this post, I’ll clarify, as concisely as possible, with references to […]

Java is a massively overloaded word. For a start, it is the name of an Indonesian island as well as being a term for coffee. Then we have Java, the computing platform. Even then, the word has several meanings: are we talking about Java the programming language syntax, Java the virtual machine or Java the […]

Now that JDK 10 has been out for a few weeks, I thought it would be a good idea to write a follow up to one of my earlier posts. The previous post described all the changes in JDK 9 that might cause problems for application migration. Since all the changes in JDK 9 are […]

Recently, the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced the most potent Raspberry Pi board yet produced while keeping the price down to an incredible $35. The Pi 3 model B+ continues the use of the Broadcom BCM2837 SoC chip but, with new packaging and improved board layout gives a much more even dissipation of heat when under […]

Trading volatility has been re-emerging with a vengeance across capital markets, and the industry press has taken note. Most recently, Robin Wigglesworth of the Financial Times has been releasing a series of articles and Tweets on the subject, highlighting some key shifts in trading drivers and practices as well as some emerging risks to overall […]

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been tracking a series of interviews (link is to #4 in the series) with 11 Java experts conducted by Jaxenter’s Gabriela Motroc. The Jaxenter articles were triggered by Oracle’s new Java release cadence, which was first announced in September 2017. From my perspective, however — the March 2018 launch of JDK […]

In a previous blog post, I went into great detail about all of the 109 new features I had managed to uncover that are included in JDK 10. Given that it’s only six months since the release of JDK 9, this is an impressive feat on the part of the Java Platform Group at Oracle. […]

In my last blog post, I discussed the use of jlink to build shrink-fit Java runtimes that only contain the modules you need for your application. As part of the research for this, I was looking at one of the options for jlink that allows you to select a virtual machine type, the idea being […]

In an earlier blog, I wrote about the changes for deployment of Java applications that will take effect in JDK 11. Specifically, the removal of support for Applets and Java Web Start. In this post, I thought I’d delve a bit deeper into the suggested way to ship application code when you make the move […]

It feels like it was only a few weeks since JDK 9 was launched, and that’s because it was. Things move on, however, and with the new release cadence for OpenJDK, JDK 10 has already reached the release candidate milestone. I’ve seen a variety of blog posts on the subject of what’s new in JDK […]

We talk to lots of people every week, ranging from analysts and press to prospects and customers, and there’s one thing that almost everyone has in common — last Fall they missed some huge changes in the way Java will be built, released, and supported. We can’t say it is really their fault. Java has been […]

It’s 2018, and significant changes are happening for Java. As announced last year we’re moving to a time-based release of the JDK, rather than feature-based. This is excellent news, as it means features can be integrated when ready and developers will get access to new features much faster than they ever have before. JDK 10 […]

Happy New Year! Last year, I wrote a blog with my predictions for what would happen in the world of Java in 2017. Now that 2017 has ended and we’re starting 2018, I thought it would be interesting to look back at what I had predicted and make some new predictions for this year. I’ll […]

Recently, I ran a webinar on “Migrating Applications to JDK 9” . To develop this, I used some of the material I had researched for an earlier blog post along with new material gleaned from different sources. Rather than looking at the details of moving an application from the classpath to a set of modules, I […]

But you can confuse them… I don’t envy Mark Reinhold’s job. As Chief Architect of the Java Platform Group at Oracle, he has literally millions of Java developers to keep happy. That’s no simple task. Just before JavaOne, there were a number of announcements made about the Java platform including a move to a strict […]

Today is the day! After a [rather long] wait, JDK 9 is finally here! JDK 9 has plenty of new features (you can find more details in my presentation, “55 New Features in JDK 9”) but, from a developers perspective doesn’t quite have the excitement we had with JDK 8 and the introduction of Lambda […]

Azul often gets asked how to apply newer time zone definitions to already installed JDKs. Up until now, the answers have been: (1) update your JDK to the latest revision, which will have newer timezone details inside, or (2) download and use tzupdater. Since the answer for (2) is free but not always attractive, Azul […]

In my last blog entry on JDK 9 compatibility, I included a list of the command line options that had been removed between JDK 8 and JDK 9. For this blog, I thought I’d do the inverse and look at the new command-line options available in JDK 9. I’m going to limit things to the […]

JDK 9 is in the final phases of development, heading towards release on September 21st. The public review consideration ballot for the Java Platform Module System was passed [almost] unanimously, and so everything is now back on track. You can download the Azul Zulu builds of OpenJDK 9 here. Recently I’ve been doing a presentation entitled, […]

Recently Gartner released a report advising their clients to look carefully at their use of Java SE to ensure compliance with the Java SE terms of use. We encourage you to do the same and invite you to explore open source Java alternatives like Zulu and Zulu Enterprise. Azul’s Zulu products are 100% open source, […]

According to the DB-Engines website, Apache Solr, is the second most popular search engine software in use today.   Since Solr is written in Java, performance will obviously be impacted by which JVM you use. Recently, here at Azul we decided to compare the performance of Solr running on Zing using C4 to Oracle’s Hotspot JVM […]

Here at Azul, our primary focus is on figuring out how to make the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) as fast as possible. If you look at what the JVM does for Java application code there are three main areas of functionality, all of which affect the performance of applications:  Memory management (including the Garbage Collector) […]

“Windows NT addresses 2 Gigabytes of RAM, which is more than any application will ever need.” – Microsoft, on the development of Windows NT, 1992 Whilst the above quote is clearly no longer true, one of the misconceptions I often come across when talking to people about Azul’s Zing JVM is how much memory it […]

Developing with Zing: Overview Azul gets asked frequently whether Zing–which is a by design a great production JVM on the server–would also satisfy a developer use case for Java applications. Typically, this means putting Zing onto a laptop or desktop and running developer IDEs and tools. Fortunately, several factors are converging to make Zing in […]

Earlier this week, I delivered a webinar entitled, “The Future of Garbage Collection in Java”. The premise of this session was to look at how things will change from a GC perspective in JDK 9 and then look a little further into the future at what research is being conducted in this area (specifically project […]

I’ve written a couple of blogs in the past about jHiccup, which is a really useful tool for looking at the performance of the platform your Java application is running on. jHiccup can show you things like the real impact of garbage collection pauses on your application. Recently, however, I found another use for it, […]

This week we had one of the three face-to-face meetings that the JCP executive committee (EC) has each year. This is only my second meeting of this format; despite my long history with Java it’s interesting to see the way things work from this perspective. Since the minutes of the meeting have not yet been […]

Many years ago, when I was working at Sun doing Java Evangelism, a friend of mine bought me a genuine crystal ball. He said I was always trying to tell people about the future of Java, so I might as well be appropriately equipped. Since this is the first week of 2017 (happy new year), […]

An article was published recently in The Register, that has raised concerns about the licensing implications of using Oracle’s Java offerings. Many end-users have expressed concerns about whether they need to pay to use Java. To help resolve some of this confusion Oracle’s Java Platform Group, Product Management team posted a blog entry describing their […]

I’m really not sure how I stumbled across this link, but it was a while ago and I put a reminder in my diary so I’d remember the twentieth anniversary of the unveiling of the @deprecated javadoc tag. As such I thought some reflections on this would make an interesting blog entry. When Java was […]

There were two interesting pieces of news this week related to the use of Java in embedded devices to help power the so-called “Internet of Things” (IoT). The first is the results of a survey carried out by the Eclipse Foundation, (there’s also a slide deck) asking IoT developers about what they’re doing and what […]

In my last blog entry, I used a small piece of code I was working on to demonstrate how pre-JDK 8 code using external iteration could be converted to use streams with a powerful standard collector. I also highlighted the problem that can arise when exceptions can be thrown from within a Lambda expression used […]

I’ve been using JDK 8 for over two years now and have found the new functional style of programming it provides really powerful. The thing that really impresses me about lambda expressions and streams is how I keep finding places where I am just blown away by how simple they make things. Let’s have a […]

On July 28 we announced the general availability of Zulu Embedded (OpenJDK) for ARM v7 and 32-bit v8 designs. We also announced our embedded processor roadmap for the next 6 months, which includes ARM (32 and 64-bit), Intel X64 (32 and 64-bit), PowerPC and MIPS processors. Fully-supported Zulu Embedded builds of OpenJDK for 32-bit ARM […]

I wrote this as an article for an electronics magazine, but I figure it also makes a good blog post. Java is slow:Back in 1995, when Java was first released, the JVM used very simple algorithms internally to run code.  All bytecodes were interpreted; thread synchronisation was primitive and memory management simplistic. With over twenty […]

Today Azul announced that Zulu Embedded, Azul’s open source Java Virtual Machine (JVM) based on OpenJDK, now supports 32-bit ARM processors, the dominant processor architecture for embedded designs. For manufacturers in the embedded, mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) markets, Zulu Embedded provides a proven Java platform that is 100% open source, Java SE standards […]

By Kevin Lee Senior Director, Marketing and Product Management at Azul Systems Today at Embedded World in Nuremberg, Germany, we’ve made a major announcement on Java availability for ARM32. Zulu Embedded, Azul’s build of OpenJDK, now supports ARM32. This is a major milestone for everyone who has been trying to or wanted to use Java on […]

Reflections as a First-Time JUG Host I’d like to build on the notion Simon outlined in his post last week. I hadn’t attended a Java User Group (“JUG”) meeting until I started with Azul. I got sent with two days of prior notice to speak to the Metro User Group in Dallas. As a speaker, […]

News Highlights: Zing now supports an industry-leading 2TB of pauseless heap memory per Java instance, greatly improving the capabilities and response time of in-memory computing and simplifying deployments Zing 16.01 has added enhanced monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities, helping to further reduce operating costs for web-scale Java deployments Azul continues to expand the number of Apache […]

It’s the start of 2016, which means that we’ve now finished the “20 Years of Java” celebrations. Actually, although the announcement about Java (and the HotJava browser, which did not enjoy quite the same success) was made publicly on May 23rd, 1995, the first official release of the JDK was on January 23rd, 1996. You […]

This week’s JCP meeting was coincident with a series of press articles and commentary around a proposal within the OpenJDK community to make G1 the default garbage collector for Java 9. As Azul is the recognized leader in Java garbage collection technology, many people asked for our opinion. From what we hear from our customers […]

Oracle has announced that after April 2015, updates for Java SE 7 will no longer be posted to the public download sites: Java 7 will be End of Life (EoL). If you haven’t yet upgraded to Java 8, or if you’ve made the decision to stay on an earlier version of Java, we encourage you […]

At the No Fluff Just Stuff (NFJS) San Diego Software Symposium this weekend, Azul VM Engineer Douglas Hawkins answers this question. He is presenting 5 sessions, covering everything from concurrency issues and Java garbage collection to how the compiler makes decisions on how to optimize and de-optimize your code and even how to measure performance. […]

Zing has always had JMX capability. That part’s not new. The part that is new is the addition of MXBeans that clearly describe the elasticity of Zing’s heap memory pools and its fully concurrent garbage collection. Because Zing doesn’t have many of the limitations of other JVMs (which is a great thing!), the JMX information […]

Certified, compliant, compatible – all these terms are used to describe whether a JVM fits the Java standard. What’s the difference and why does it matter for your apps? Java versions, in all their variants (SE, ME, EE, etc.) are standards controlled by the Java Community Process (JCP). The Java Technology Compatibility Kit (TCK or […]