Welcome to the Managed Runtime Initiative

[Mark Wielaard]

Since I didn't see this posted on the main openjdk mailinglists yet,
there is some more exciting news today (well, yesterday):

http://www.managedruntime.org/

        The Managed Runtime Initiative is an open development and
        integration initiative launched by Azul Systems with the aim of
        improving the execution of managed runtimes (.e.g. Java,
        Ruby, .Net) by enhancing interfaces and functionality across
        vertical components of the systems stack (e.g. managed runtime,
        OS kernel, hypervisor and hardware layer).

[...]

        The enhanced OpenJDK runtime project (“MRI-J”) and reference
        implementation contributed by Azul Systems is an enhanced
        OpenJDK runtime which demonstrates how highly optimized modules
        working in concert across enhanced interfaces in the system
        stack can achieve dramatic performance and scalability
        improvements. The first release (version 0.9) includes a fully
        functional Java Virtual Machine (JVM) based on an enhanced
        version of OpenJDK 6. Core capabilities of JVM include pauseless
        garbage collection and two orders of magnitude (100x) increase
        in object allocation rate (and supported heap size) for
        dramatically improved scalability and consistency.

[...]

        The enhanced Linux project and reference implementation
        contributed by Azul Systems provides a set of enhanced loadable
        Linux kernel objects (LKOs) that expose new functionality and
        interfaces which are needed and used by the enhanced OpenJDK
        runtime project. LKOs are provided for new virtual memory
        subsystem, physical memory subsystem, and resource scheduler
        functionality.  The LKOs include capabilities which support
        garbage collection, high virtual memory allocation and
        manipulation rates, and policy enforcement.  Changes are also
        provided to the Linux kernel to add hooks that enable the LKOs.

[...]

        The enhanced OpenJDK runtime project and enhanced Linux project
        are both released under the GPL v2 + Classpath exception, which
        is the same license as OpenJDK and Linux.

Some more background articles:

http://www.infoq.com/news/2010/06/azul_ori
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/15/azul_runtime_gosling/

Cheers,

Mark