Java is a strong player in the application server market and thus the performance
of its virtual machine is an important aspect of a server's performance. One of
the components that affect performance of a JVM is the memory manager, which
also includes the garbage collector. Modern virtual machines offer a multitude
of options for tuning the memory manager, which can have a significant impact
on server application performance.
This paper examines the structure and performance of garbage collector implementations
for the most popular JVMs. We first provide a brief overview of how memory management
works in Java and then proceed to present timing options based on the results of
benchmarks, both readily available and tailor made, executed using open source server
applications. We employ server-class dual-processor 64-bit hardware configured with
8GB of RAM and a switching network of workstations to perform the tests. We study
the effect of garbage collection tuning and present the best configurations
for common workload patterns.
|
Athens University of Economics and Business
Giorgos Gousios is a PhD candidate at the Athens University of Economics and Business.
He holds a Diploma in Information and Communication Systems Engineering from the
University of the Aegean and an MSc (with distinction) in Advanced Computer Science
from the University of Manchester. He has contributed code in various open source projects.
He is the recipient of the 2002 SANE best paper award. His research interests include
programming languages implementation, virtual machines, memory management and operating
system architectures.
|
Athens University of Economics and Business
Vassilios Karakoidas is a PhD candidate in Athens University of Economics and Business
at the Department of Management Science and Technology. He holds an BSc in Computer Science
(University of Piraeus) and an MSc in Information Systems (Athens University of Economics
and Business). He is former member of the Health Informatics laboratory at University of
Piraeus.
He is now a member of ELTRUN/SENSE and has been involved in various research projects.
His research interests include Software Engineering, Programming Languages, Operating Systems
and Computer Networks.
|
Diomidis Spinellis is an Associate Professor at the Department of Management
Science and Technology at the Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece.
His research interests include software engineering tools, programming languages,
and computer security. He holds an MEng in Software Engineering and a PhD in
Computer Science both from Imperial College London.
He has contributed to more than 100 technical papers in the areas of software engineering, information security,
and ubiquitous computing. He has also written the two Open Source Perspective books: "Code Reading" (Software
Development Productivity Award 2004), and "Code Quality". He is a member of the IEEE Software editorial board,
authoring the regular "Tools of the Trade" column.
Dr. Spinellis is a FreeBSD committer and the author of a number of open-source software packages, libraries, and tools.
Dr. Spinellis is a member of the ACM, the IEEE, and the Usenix Association.
|
|
