The Azul Platform for Java

Java is an open-source platform represented by the Open Java Development Kit overseen by Oracle. Azul provides a value-add Java platform, which as well as implementing OpenJDK (Azul Platform Core – a secure and stable OpenJDK build), also includes a high-performance JVM (Azul Platform Prime, with hyper-optimised execution, a cloud-native compiler, generational pauseless garbage collection and rapid warm-up); and Azul Vulnerability Detection (continuous detection of known vulnerabilities in production). Azul provides extra features on top of OpenJDK and services for Java development, including the release management (Azul’s commercial customers want spaced, stable Java releases, which they can introduce without disrupting their commercial operations) and managed bug and security fixes.

Fig 1 – The Azul Platform

Quotes

“Azul is like a toy store for engineers. The work we do encompasses a rare concentration of highly technical, leading-edge and core technologies that power the world’s Java and Java-based infrastructure. We continually deliver technology that makes us all proud.”
Gil Tene, Azul CTO & Co-founder

“In talking with Azul, the trust came quickly, and was continually reinforced by the excellent support we received. Azul gives us peace of mind.”
Travis Spencer, Curity CEO

Azul offers three distinct products as part of the Azul Platform. Azul Platform Core offers an alternative to Oracle Java that is functionally equivalent, less expensive to implement and with broader version support than provided by Oracle. Moreover, aside from Oracle it is the only vendor to separate essential security patches (CPUs), which you probably want to implement quickly, from more general patches/updates (PSUs), which you may well want to test more thoroughly (and/or delay until reports have come back from early implementers, in case of unanticipated impacts on your applications).

Azul also offers a performance JVM, Azul Platform Prime. Standard Java runtimes are effective in many applications but may have issues at extreme scale, during startup and warmup, or where consistency of response or performance (low latency) is essential.

• Azul Platform Prime includes a new “Just In Time” performance Java compiler (Falcon). Java is much faster than scripted languages like Python when using a state-of-the-art compiler. The business benefits of this include: fewer engineering hours required to achieve desired performance, consistency and scale; lower operating costs from a reduced memory footprint; better, more consistent customer experience; better application service levels with reduced latency and fewer timeouts. Azul Platform Prime also offers a Cloud Native Compiler that offloads JIT compilation to the cloud, which further improves performance and cost efficiency.
• Azul Platform Prime also addresses the Java garbage collection problem. Java pauses in order for the Java Virtual Machines (JVMs) to free up memory automatically. This is a good thing and often the pause is unnoticeable but can last seconds or even minutes as you scale up. Azul’s Continuously Concurrent Compacting Collector (C4) is the only production-ready, generational pauseless garbage collector available in Java. It has been available since 2010 and is used by many Fortune 500 companies.
• Java can have a warm-up issue while it decides which parts of the code are used most and just-in-time compiles and optimises them. Conversely, if the application processing profile changes, Java can revert to de-optimised interpreted code, while it compiles new modules. Java starts fast and gets faster – but in some applications (such as Capital Markets) you need the application to start up fully optimised – as fast as possible – from the get go. Azul Platform Prime includes ReadyNow!, which allows operations teams to save and reuse accumulated optimization profiles across runs; and also provides a robust set of APIs and compiler directives that give developers more control over the timing and impact of JVM de-optimisation.

Fig 2 – How Azul Vulnerability Detection works

The Azul Platform also includes a new SaaS product released in November 2022 called Azul Vulnerability Detection, which maintains a knowledge base containing “fingerprints” of known vulnerabilities found in the NIST National Vulnerability Database and compares this to fingerprints of code actually processed by Azul JVMs. Not only is this a backstop against careless coding practices (if you find known vulnerabilities, you should not only remove them but also check for flaws in your development processes) but also a protection against new vulnerabilities that have only just been identified. Azul Vulnerability Detection is agentless, and runs continually, against production Java.

Azul also provides commercial levels of support, with training, webinars, discussion papers etc. all available. Long Term Support (LTS) based on 8+2 year product lifecycle model. All in all, Azul support ensures that your developers are part of a supportive community that contributes to security, user experience, developer morale – and code quality.

You should care about compatibility with OpenJDK because you don’t want to be locked in to one platform or one vendor and you care about support and continuous variability detection, because you want a secure and effective platform for your applications to run on, so you can sleep at night. You care about the availability of an easy-to-implement performance Java because applications grow and if they are successful they attract more users and get implemented more widely, so that performance and latency issues that were not important initially may become so – and you want to be able to scale up with minimal impact on the business.

The Bottom Line

Azul Platform Core is a simple drop-in replacement for the Oracle implementation of the OpenJDK and it plays well with other Java technologies. More than that, however, its pricing policies are more cost effective than Oracle’s and it has an easy upgrade path to a performance Java suitable for mission-critical low latency applications. The availability of continual protection from known vulnerabilities with Azul Vulnerability Detection is a useful addition.

Similarly to Oracle (but unlike other JVMs) Azul separates essential security patches and more general patches/updates, so that they can be applied with different implementation urgencies and different testing regimes, which should result in a better managed Java environment, especially for mission-critical applications.

Finally, it provides extensive 24×7 global support for Java including training webinars and a blog. These help to ensure that people remain committed to an effective Java culture and improves the developers’ user experience.