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September 19, 2019

Azul Systems Bridges Java Feature-Support Availability Gap

SUNNYVALE, Calif.Azul Systems (Azul), the leader in Java runtime solutions, has announced the general availability (GA) of its Zulu builds of OpenJDK that are compliant with the Java SE 13 standard. With this release and its commitment to ongoing support, Azul is bridging the feature-support availability gap in the Java roadmap, as newly released Java features do not benefit from immediate Long Term Support (LTS).

Azul Zulu builds of OpenJDK are Java Development Kits (JDK) and compliant implementations of the Java Standard Edition (SE) specification. Azul’s builds contain all the Java components needed to build and run Java SE applications. OpenJDK is the large community project where Java is developed and evolved, led by Oracle, IBM, Red Hat, Azul, and numerous others.

Since September of 2017, Oracle and the OpenJDK community have moved to a fast-moving six-month release schedule, with new feature releases launched every September and March, with certain releases once every three years designated as Long Term Support (LTS) status.

Java 11, which was released in September 2018, was the last LTS release following Java 8. The next LTS release will be unavailable until Java 17, which is currently planned for September 2021. While this plan generally has been accepted by the Java community, any new features added to the Java platform will not surface in stable LTS releases for several years.

Bridging the gap

This release cadence can force Java developers to forego some innovations for up to three years unless they wish to embrace a feature release that will reach its end of life within six months. Azul has chosen to bridge this feature and support availability gap by designating odd-numbered feature releases between each Long Term Support build as Medium Term Support (MTS) releases.

Starting with Java 13, each MTS release will be supported by Azul for 18 months after the GA of the next LTS release of Java. Java developers and operations teams who wish to take advantage of the latest innovations within the Java platform no longer have to risk deploying un-supported releases and can adopt a much faster cadence for implementing the latest innovations in the Java platform without waiting for the next LTS release.

“With the release of Zulu builds of Java 13, freely available for the community and with commercial support options also available, Azul is providing assurance to the Java community that feature releases absolutely are usable in production,” said Scott Sellers, Azul Systems president and CEO. “Java 13, Java 15, and future MTS builds will help bridge the 3-year gap between LTS builds of OpenJDK, making the adoption of new Java innovations far more practical.”

Java 12 and Java 13 include a variety of new features in the language and runtime, as well as implementing a variety of new APIs. A detailed summary of the Java 12 release was published by Azul Deputy CTO Simon Ritter and can be reviewed at https://www.azul.com/39-new-features-and-apis-in-jdk-12/. Simon’s summary of the new features in Java 13 is also available on the Azul System website at https://www.azul.com/jdk-13-81-new-features-and-apis/.

Free Zulu Community builds of OpenJDK supporting Java 13 can be downloaded from the Azul website at https://www.azul.com/downloads/zulu-community. Azul’s complete product support cadence is available at https://www.azul.com/products/azul-support-roadmap/. For more information regarding Azul’s commercial support options, visit https://www.azul.com/products/zulu-enterprise/.

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.