Azul's ReadyNow is yet another attempt to tackle Java's warm up issues, on the cloud and large fleets of JVMs or JVMs in containerized environments.

Lately a lot of investment has been put into making Java faster to start. This has to do that with Java re-emerging as a major player in the sector of Microservices and Cloud Native applications, due to some great and new language features, optimized JDKs along with frequent release rates;therefore performance should follow along.

The JVM is notorious for its hefty requirements in startup times. The main reason for the slow startup is that it takes much time to load, link, and initialize classes. Of course we are talking micro-seconds here but the delay can make a difference when trying to spin VMs on the Cloud and run Microservices.
There's a few takes at speeding it up already, not taking in account GrallVM and Spring Native. These are:

• OpenJDK Leyden, with JVM Runtime optimizations and static compilation.
  
  
• As examined in Google Joins Adoptium - What's The Deal? Google in partnership with Alibaba, kickstarted the Eclipse Adoptium FastStartup Incubator project which aims to make Java faster by exploring things like class pre-initialization.
  
  
• And there's project CRaC examined in Azul Zulu OpenJDK 17 Build Now Comes With CRaC. CRaC stands for Coordinated Restore at Checkpoint. It is an API that helps to coordinate the JDK and an application's resources under a checkpoint/restore mechanism. It allows applications to, for instance, close open files, dump their cache, and snapshot the required state for them to come alive when restored back. As such the primary aim of the project is to offer a standard mechanism-agnostic API to notify Java programs about the checkpoint and restore events.

That was a solution instilled into the JDK. Now Azul makes a come back with an alternative solution called ReadyNow, offered at a platform level.

ReadyNow monitors your Java application for usage patterns and the most efficient optimizations, then builds a profile of those optimizations. The next time you start your application the JVM immediately performs those optimizations, getting your application to full speed as quickly as possible.

The benefits of ReadyNow are:

• New JVMs reach peak speed faster
  
  
• You get consistent speed throughout the life of your Java app because ReadyNow can predict changes in usage patterns and eliminate de-optimization storms
  
  
• Ensures consistent, peak performance during critical times like market open or high-volume online shopping periods
  
  
• Lower cloud costs because you can maximize your elastic scaling operations, spending less money on over provisioned instances and spare capacity that is only there to deal with slow warmup
  
  
• Reduced operational warmup risks caused by the need for synthetic tests or “fake” data

Of course, it goes without saying that under the hood it employs Azul's builds of the JDK. However, the processes of profiling and distributing that profile to other JVMs with ReadyNow is a manual approach.

To take a step further, Azul also introduces the ReadyNow Orchestrator service, which can automatically monitor and profile a fleet of JVMs or JVMs in containerized environments, to apply to it the most optimized profile.

Like all of Optimizer Hub, ReadyNow Orchestrator is free to use with all licensed installations of Azul Platform Prime.

More Information

Azul ReadyNow

Related Articles

Google Joins Adoptium - What's The Deal?

Azul Zulu OpenJDK 17 Build Now Comes With CRaC

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