Azul Systems

Last updated

Azul Systems
Company typePrivate
IndustryComputer Software
Founded2002
Headquarters
Sunnyvale, California
,
United States
Key people
Scott Sellers, CEO, President, and Co-Founder
Gil Tene, CTO, Co-Founder
Leonid Leniashin, VP of Engineering
Website www.azul.com

Azul Systems, Inc. (also known as Azul) is a company that develops and distributes runtimes (JDK, JRE, JVM) for executing Java-based applications. The company was founded in March 2002. Azul Systems has headquarters in Sunnyvale, California. [1]

Contents

History

Azul Systems was founded by Scott Sellers (now President & CEO), Gil Tene (CTO), and Shyam Pillalamarri. Initially founded as a hardware appliance company, Azul's Java Compute Appliances (JCAs) were designed to massively scale up the usable computing resources available to Java applications. The first compute appliances, offered in April 2005, were the Vega 1-based models. [2] [3]

With the introduction of Azul Platform Prime in 2010, [4] the company transitioned to producing software-only products. It retired its hardware appliance Vega product lines in 2013. Stephen DeWitt previously held the position of CEO. [5]

On April 1, 2020, Azul announced that it had closed a strategic growth equity investment led by London-based Vitruvian Partners and New York-based Lead Edge Capital. [6] In the agreement, Azul shareholders were expected to receive a total of approximately $340 million in consideration. Based on public filings, [7] Azul had raised more than $200M in financing to date.

Products

Azul Platform Prime (formerly Zing)

Azul produced Platform Prime, a Java virtual machine (JVM) and runtime platform for Java applications.

Platform Prime is compliant with the associated Java SE version standards. It is based on the same HotSpot JVM and JDK code base used by the Oracle and OpenJDK JDKs, with enhancements relating to garbage collection, JIT compilation, and Warmup behaviors, all aimed at producing improved application execution metrics and performance indicators.

Key feature areas in Platform Prime include:

Formerly known as Zing, it first became available on October 19, 2010. [4] The company was formerly known for its Vega Java Compute Appliances, specialized hardware designed to use compute resources available to Java applications. Zing utilized and improved on the software technology initially developed for the Vega hardware. [12]

The product has been regularly updated and refreshed since then. [13]

Platform Prime is available for Linux, and requires x86-based hardware powered by Intel or AMD processors. [14]

Azul Platform Core (formerly Zulu and Zulu Embedded JVM)

Azul distributes and supports Zulu and Zulu Enterprise, a certified binary build of OpenJDK. The initial release in September 2013 supported Java 7 ran on Windows 2008 R2 and 2012 on the Windows Azure Cloud. [15] On January 21, 2014, Azul announced Zulu support for multiple Linux versions, Java 6, as well as Zulu Enterprise, which has subscription support options. [16] Support for Java 8 was added in April 2014 and Mac OS X support was added in June 2014. [17] In September 2014, Zulu was extended to support Docker. [18] Zulu Embedded, which allows developers to customize the build footprint, was released in March, 2015. [19]

Azul produces the jHiccup open-source performance measurement tool for Java applications. It is designed to measure the stalls or "hiccups" caused by an application's underlying Java platform. [20]

Azul Intelligence Cloud

In December 2021, Azul launched Intelligence Cloud, [21] a family of products that apply cloud resources to analyze and optimize Java fleets and provide actionable intelligence. The first product, Cloud Native Compiler, [22] uses a cloud-centric approach that decouples just-in-time (JIT) compilation from the Java virtual machine (JVM); it is compatible with all Java applications and retains the full advantages of JIT compilation.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Java (programming language)</span> Object-oriented programming language

Java is a high-level, class-based, object-oriented programming language that is designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible. It is a general-purpose programming language intended to let programmers write once, run anywhere (WORA), meaning that compiled Java code can run on all platforms that support Java without the need to recompile. Java applications are typically compiled to bytecode that can run on any Java virtual machine (JVM) regardless of the underlying computer architecture. The syntax of Java is similar to C and C++, but has fewer low-level facilities than either of them. The Java runtime provides dynamic capabilities that are typically not available in traditional compiled languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Java virtual machine</span> Virtual machine that runs Java programs

A Java virtual machine (JVM) is a virtual machine that enables a computer to run Java programs as well as programs written in other languages that are also compiled to Java bytecode. The JVM is detailed by a specification that formally describes what is required in a JVM implementation. Having a specification ensures interoperability of Java programs across different implementations so that program authors using the Java Development Kit (JDK) need not worry about idiosyncrasies of the underlying hardware platform.

Java Platform, Standard Edition is a computing platform for development and deployment of portable code for desktop and server environments. Java SE was formerly known as Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE).

A computing platform, digital platform, or software platform is the infrastructure on which software is executed. While the individual components of a computing platform may be obfuscated under layers of abstraction, the summation of the required components comprise the computing platform.

In computing, just-in-time (JIT) compilation is compilation during execution of a program rather than before execution. This may consist of source code translation but is more commonly bytecode translation to machine code, which is then executed directly. A system implementing a JIT compiler typically continuously analyses the code being executed and identifies parts of the code where the speedup gained from compilation or recompilation would outweigh the overhead of compiling that code.

HotSpot, released as Java HotSpot Performance Engine, is a Java virtual machine for desktop and server computers, developed by Sun Microsystems which was purchased by and became a division of Oracle Corporation in 2010. Its features improved performance via methods such as just-in-time compilation and adaptive optimization. It is the de facto Java Virtual Machine, serving as the reference implementation of the Java programming language.

Jazelle DBX is an extension that allows some ARM processors to execute Java bytecode in hardware as a third execution state alongside the existing ARM and Thumb modes. Jazelle functionality was specified in the ARMv5TEJ architecture and the first processor with Jazelle technology was the ARM926EJ-S. Jazelle is denoted by a "J" appended to the CPU name, except for post-v5 cores where it is required for architecture conformance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Java (software platform)</span> Set of computer software and specifications

Java is a set of computer software and specifications that provides a software platform for developing application software and deploying it in a cross-platform computing environment. Java is used in a wide variety of computing platforms from embedded devices and mobile phones to enterprise servers and supercomputers. Java applets, which are less common than standalone Java applications, were commonly run in secure, sandboxed environments to provide many features of native applications through being embedded in HTML pages.

The Java language has undergone several changes since JDK 1.0 as well as numerous additions of classes and packages to the standard library. Since J2SE 1.4, the evolution of the Java language has been governed by the Java Community Process (JCP), which uses Java Specification Requests (JSRs) to propose and specify additions and changes to the Java platform. The language is specified by the Java Language Specification (JLS); changes to the JLS are managed under JSR 901. In September 2017, Mark Reinhold, chief Architect of the Java Platform, proposed to change the release train to "one feature release every six months" rather than the then-current two-year schedule. This proposal took effect for all following versions, and is still the current release schedule.

OpenJDK is a free and open-source implementation of the Java Platform, Standard Edition. It is the result of an effort Sun Microsystems began in 2006. The implementation is licensed under the GNU General Public License 2 with a linking exception, preventing components that linked to the Java Class Library becoming subject to the terms of the GPL license. OpenJDK is the official reference implementation of Java SE since version 7, and is the most popular distribution of the JDK.

In software development, the programming language Java was historically considered slower than the fastest third-generation typed languages such as C and C++. In contrast to those languages, Java compiles by default to a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) with operations distinct from those of the actual computer hardware. Early JVM implementations were interpreters; they simulated the virtual operations one-by-one rather than translating them into machine code for direct hardware execution.

The Java Class Library (JCL) is a set of dynamically loadable libraries that Java Virtual Machine (JVM) languages can call at run time. Because the Java Platform is not dependent on a specific operating system, applications cannot rely on any of the platform-native libraries. Instead, the Java Platform provides a comprehensive set of standard class libraries, containing the functions common to modern operating systems.

Eclipse OpenJ9 is a high performance, scalable, Java virtual machine (JVM) implementation that is fully compliant with the Java Virtual Machine Specification.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Da Vinci Machine</span> Sun Microsystems project

The Da Vinci Machine, also called the Multi Language Virtual Machine, was a Sun Microsystems project aiming to prototype the extension of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) to add support for dynamic languages.

The Java Development Kit (JDK) is a distribution of Java technology by Oracle Corporation. It implements the Java Language Specification (JLS) and the Java Virtual Machine Specification (JVMS) and provides the Standard Edition (SE) of the Java Application Programming Interface (API). It is derivative of the community driven OpenJDK which Oracle stewards. It provides software for working with Java applications. Examples of included software are the Java virtual machine, a compiler, performance monitoring tools, a debugger, and other utilities that Oracle considers useful for Java programmers.

Excelsior JET is a now-defunct proprietary Java SE technology implementation built around an ahead-of-time (AOT) Java to native code compiler. The compiler transforms the portable Java bytecode into optimized executables for the desired hardware and operating system (OS). Also included are a Java runtime featuring a just-in-time (JIT) compiler for handling classes that were not precompiled for whatever reason, the complete Java SE API implementation licensed from Oracle, and a toolkit to aid deployment of the optimized applications. Excelsior JET was developed by Excelsior LLC, headquartered in Novosibirsk, Russia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GraalVM</span> Virtual machine software

GraalVM is a Java Development Kit (JDK) written in Java. The open-source distribution of GraalVM is based on OpenJDK, and the enterprise distribution is based on Oracle JDK. As well as just-in-time (JIT) compilation, GraalVM can compile a Java application ahead of time. This allows for faster initialization, greater runtime performance, and decreased resource consumption, but the resulting executable can only run on the platform it was compiled for.

JDK Flight Recorder is an event recorder built into the OpenJDK Java virtual machine. It can be thought of as the software equivalent of a Data Flight Recorder in a commercial aircraft. It captures information about the JVM itself, and the application running in the JVM. There is a wide variety of data captured, for example method profiling, allocation profiling and garbage collection related events. The JDK Flight Recorder was designed to minimize the Observer Effect in the profiled system, and is meant to be always on in production systems. The technology was open sourced in 2018.

References

  1. ↑ "Company Locations". Azul Systems.
  2. ↑ Azul Systems at Purdue University Purdue University's S3Lab use of Vega 3 hardware platform for transactional memory abstraction research
  3. ↑ Azul Systems Vega 3 announcement, 2008
  4. 1 2 Azul Zing: moving its JVM from silicon to software, ZDNet
  5. ↑ DeWitt, Stephen (2003). "Commission of Corporations, State of California, Notice of Transaction Pursuant to Corporations Code 25102(f)" (PDF). San Francisco: California Department of Corporations.[ permanent dead link ]
  6. ↑ "Azul Systems receives growth equity investment". spglobal.com. Retrieved January 7, 2022.
  7. ↑ California Department of Business Oversight Database
  8. ↑ Tene, Gil; Iyengar, Balaji; Wolf, Michael (2011). "C4: the continuously concurrent compacting collector" (PDF). ISMM '11: Proceedings of the international symposium on Memory management. doi:10.1145/1993478. ISBN   9781450302630.
  9. ↑ Falcon: An optimizing Java JIT, The 11th meeting of LLVM developers and users Keynote
  10. ↑ Azul ReadyNow! Blasts Heat On Java "Warm-Up" Problem, Dr. Dobbs
  11. ↑ New ReadyNow From Azul Systems Solves The Java Warmup Problem, App Developer Magazine
  12. ↑ Ryan Slobojan (December 30, 2010). "Azul Puts the Zing in Java" . Retrieved March 15, 2018.
  13. ↑ Release Notes of Azul Zulu Prime Stream and Stable Builds of OpenJDK
  14. ↑ Azul Zulu Prime Builds of OpenJDK System Requirements
  15. ↑ Microsoft, Azul to put open-source Java on Azure cloud, InfoWorld, July 24, 2013 Archived October 21, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
  16. ↑ Azul Systems press releases Azul Systems® Launches Zulu™ Enterprise, a Commercialized, Fully-Supported Version of OpenJDK™ and Azul Systems® Extends Zulu™ to Support Java 6 and Major Linux Distributions
  17. ↑ Azul Systems press releases Azul Systems Extends Zulu® Runtime for Java to Support Java 8 and Azul Systems Extends Zulu® Runtime for Java to Support Mac OS X
  18. ↑ Run anywhere again: Java hooks up with Docker, InfoWorld
  19. ↑ Java-based platforms certified for IoT, Electronics Weekly
  20. ↑ Azul Releases Open-Source jHiccup Tool to Provide Response Time Analysis of the Java Runtime
  21. ↑ Hainzinger, Brittany. "Intelligence cloud lands from Azul". App Developer Magazine. Retrieved January 13, 2022.
  22. ↑ Krill, Paul (December 15, 2021). "Azul brings Java compilation to the cloud". InfoWorld. Retrieved January 13, 2022.
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