Will Azul's ReadyNow Orchestrator Finally Solve Java’s Warmup Problem?

Azul debuts ReadyNow Orchestrator and aims it at the 'Java warmup problem.'

• By John K. Waters
• August 30, 2023

Open-source Java platform provider Azul today announced ReadyNow Orchestrator, a new feature of its Azul Platform Prime designed to reduce warmup time for Java applications, enabling improvements to operational efficiencies and optimization of cloud costs.

Azul's ReadyNow is a feature of Azul Platform Prime, the company's Java virtual machine (JVM) and runtime platform for Java applications (formerly known as "Zing"). It was created to dramatically improve the warm-up behavior of Java applications. It requires no changes to Java applications, the company says, and is included at no additional charge for users of Azul Platform Prime.

ReadyNow Orchestrator, which is available now, automates profile distribution by delegating all profile collection to a dedicated, customer-managed service. Instead of collecting profile information on a single JVM, it monitors entire fleets of JVMs, learns from application usage what the best optimization profile is, and then automatically serves the profile to any JVM that requests it so that Java applications warm up much more rapidly with no human intervention, the company says. 

"Azul has a distinguished history of delivering pioneering technology for Java applications, such as eliminating garbage collection pauses and offering the highest application performance with the world’s best Just-in-Time compiler," said John Ceccarelli, Sr. Director of Product Management for Azul Platform Prime. "With ReadyNow and ReadyNow Orchestrator, we’re now solving Java’s warmup challenges and providing a novel way for enterprises to improve developer and operational efficiencies and reduce cloud costs."

Java's "warmup problem" is not new. As the company explains it, when a Java application is launched, the JVM is responsible for compiling it into a form that can be executed by the machine or device running it. As the application continues to run, the JVM will recompile and further optimize important parts of the application’s code to improve performance, essentially "warming up" over time before it reaches peak performance.

"Java’s warmup problem has long been an issue in ensuring peak application performance," said William Fellows, Research Director at 451 Research, in a statement. "Organizations should consider ways to reduce operational friction by automating the selection of the best optimization patterns for container-based applications while also improving elasticity to control cloud costs."

Azul is one of the largest companies with a 100% focus on Java and the JVM. It has a long history of providing solution to enhance the performance of Java apps, including such products as its "pauseless" garbage collector. Azul first announced its ReadyNow technology in 2014 and began shipping it as part of its Zing runtime for Java applications.