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July 31, 2019

Azul Systems Announces General Availability of Zing 19.07

  • Zing’s ZST kernel module is now optional, eliminating the need for root/administrator privileges during installation and greatly simplifying container and Cloud deployments
  • Zing 19.07 delivers Apache Solr performance that is 25%-75% faster than Oracle Java SE 8, and on average 24% faster performance for Apache Spark SQL queries
  • Zing now bundles Zulu Mission Control, a powerful open source profiling and performance analysis tool, at no additional charge

 

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Azul Systems (Azul), the award-winning leader in Java runtime solutions, today announced the general availability (GA) of Zing release 19.07, Azul’s flagship Java virtual machine (JVM). Certified, tested downloads of the new Zing release are available immediately from the Azul website with support for Java SE 11, 8, and 7.

Zing 19.07 eliminates the requirement for the ZST memory management kernel module
As part of its industry-best C4 garbage collector, Zing performs complex memory manipulation functions and supports memory allocation rates without pausing far beyond alternative JVMs. Historically, this has been accomplished via a memory management kernel module called the ZST, which pre-allocates memory pages from the operating system to guarantee memory access without paging or other performance-robbing impacts. While the performance consistency and scalability benefits can be significant, use of the ZST requires root/administrator privileges to install and configure.

With the release of Zing 19.07, use of the ZST module is now optional, making it far easier to install and deploy Zing across a variety of environments including container and Cloud deployments. When deployed on properly configured supported versions of Linux, performance and latency characteristics of the C4 garbage collector is indistinguishable with or without using the ZST. For applications requiring the absolute lowest consistent latency or terabyte-scale Java heaps, use of the ZST will continue to be fully supported. 

Zing 19.07 extends performance advantage when executing ad hoc and query-based workloads
Zing is well-known in the Java community for delivering industry-leading performance in latency-sensitive transactional applications spanning use cases that include electronic trading, online advertising, real-time messaging, Big Data (Hadoop, Cassandra), in-memory caching and many other workloads.

Release 19.07 extends Zing’s performance and throughput advantages for ad-hoc queries, a common use case in enterprise search and decision support applications such as those based on Apache Lucene, Elastic, or Solr or analytics applications such as those based on Apache Spark.

The graph below illustrates the 25%-75% performance advantage Zing 19.07 achieves versus Oracle Java SE 8 for Apache Solr, a widely deployed enterprise search platform:

 

Chart 1: Azul Zing 19.07 vs. Oracle Java SE 8 running Apache Solr. The benchmark results shown above are from a run of YCSB-0.14-solr(b), and the graph represents operations/second recorded across a ten-minute run. Azul ran the benchmark using 8u212 builds of both Oracle Hotspot and Zing.

 

In a series of Apache Spark SQL queries taken from the TPC-DS suite, Zing 19.07 delivers consistently better performance, 24% on average, across a wide variety of query types, and gains for certain queries exceeding 100%. The chart below shows the results of Zing vs. Oracle Java SE 8 for Apache Spark SQL queries:

Chart 2: Azul Zing 19.07 vs. Oracle Java SE 8 running Apache Spark performance tests. The chart shows the ratio of Zing vs Oracle Java SE 8 running Spark SQL queries using the TPC-DS benchmark. Green bars show queries where Zing was faster than Oracle Java SE, and the red bars show the few results where Oracle Java SE outperforms Zing.

 

Zing 19.07 now includes Flight Recorder and Zulu Mission Control
Zulu Mission Control is a tested, certified build of the OpenJDK Mission Control project, a powerful open source Java performance management and application profiling tool. It allows for Java applications to be monitored live in production without impacting performance, as well as supports detailed analysis and historical playback of applications using previously generated data logs. Zulu Mission Control can be used with both Zing JDK 8 and Zing JDK 11, and support is included at no additional charge with all Zing subscriptions. For more information about Zulu Mission Control and its unique features, visit www.azul.com/products/zulu-mission-control.

“Release 19.07 is a major milestone in the evolution of Zing, incorporating improved query performance, simpler configuration and installation for container and cloud-based deployments, and support for Flight Recorder and Zulu Mission Control,” said Scott Sellers, Azul Systems president and CEO. “Zing continues to broaden the kinds of use cases where it delivers a compelling performance and latency advantage, helping Java applications be deployed with both reduced capital and operating expenses while delivering results that meet or exceed even the most demanding service levels.”

Free trial downloads of Zing 19.07 can be accessed at www.azul.com/zingtrial. Additional information about Zing is available at www.azul.com/products/zing. Free downloads of Zulu Mission Control are available at www.azul.com/products/zulu-mission-control.

About Azul Systems
Twitter:@azulsystems

Azul Systems, the industry’s only company exclusively focused on Java and the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), builds fully supported, certified standards-compliant Java runtime solutions that bring the power of Java to the enterprise, cloud, and embedded/IoT. Zing is a JVM designed for a wide variety of enterprise Java applications and workloads that may require any combination of low latency, high transaction rates, large working memory, improved query performance and/or consistent response times. Zulu is Azul’s certified, freely available open source build of OpenJDK with a variety of flexible commercial support options, available in configurations for ISVs, enterprises, and on-premise or Cloud deployments, as well as custom and embedded/IoT devices. For additional information, visit www.azul.com.

Zulu Enterprise, Zulu Embedded, Zulu Community, and ZuluFX are trademarks, and Azul Systems, the Azul Systems logo, Zulu, Zing, and ReadyNow are registered trademarks of Azul Systems, Inc. Java and OpenJDK are trademarks of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliated companies in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.