Microsoft has announced the preview of its own Java Development Kit, described as "a new long-term supported free distribution and the new way for Microsoft to collaborate and contribute to the Java ecosystem." Subsequently, this version will become the default distribution of Java 11 in Azure managed services.
And is that Microsoft makes use of java in its developer division and in workloads from java on your Azure cloud platform. Last year, the software maker ported OpenJDK for Windows 10 to Arm-based devices (AArch64). But Microsoft's new version of OpenJDK is a much bigger step.
Microsoft relies on Java technologies for a variety of its own internal systems, applications and workloads to enable the implementation of recognized public products and services, as well as a large set of mission-critical systems that drive business. Azure infrastructure. And the company highlights its intense internal use of its own version of the language.
Microsoft mentions that for the moment the preview version already meets the Java 11 specifications and it can replace any other version of OpenJDK
“The Microsoft OpenJDK binaries for Java 11 are based on the OpenJDK source code, following the same release scripts used by the Eclipse Adoptium project and tested by the Eclipse Adoptium QA suite (including testing by the OpenJDK project). Our Java 11 binaries have passed the Technical Compatibility Kit (TCK) test for Java 11, which is used to verify compatibility with the Java 11 specification. Microsoft's version of OpenJDK is a simple replacement for any other OpenJDK distribution. available in the 'Java ecosystem'.
What distinguishes Microsoft's version of OpenJDK 11 binaries of others, the company says, are:
"Fixes and improvements that we think are important to our customers and internal users." “Some of them have not yet been officially updated and are clearly indicated in our release notes. This allows us to accelerate improvements and fixes while making those changes in parallel. The updates will be free and all Java developers can implement them anywhere "
According to the company's developer blog post, Bruno Borges of Microsoft's Java Product Management division indicated that Microsoft is currently deploying more than 500,000 Java Virtual Machines (JVM) internally (excluding all Azure services and workloads). customers). Additionally, more than 140.000 of these JVMs are already based on Microsoft's version of OpenJDK, according to the company.
Azure is still the main target for internal Java development, It drives critical tasks and supports overall infrastructure, but these JVMs are also used for back-end microservices, big data systems, message brokers, messaging services, event streaming, and game servers.
“Java is one of the most important programming languages in use today. Developers use it to create everything from essential business applications to hobby robots, ”the company said in the statement.
In the future, Microsoft will recommend better optimizations for Java workloads in these services, once the company begins to deploy new JVMs with its version of OpenJDK on Azure. Later this year, this version will become the default distribution for Java 11 on Azure managed services, Bruno said in the statement.
It should also be noted that for Azure managed services that offer Java 8 as a target runtime option, Microsoft will support Eclipse Adoptium Java 8 binaries (formerly AdoptOpenJDK).
Microsoft's OpenJDK preview packages and installers are available immediately. Microsoft Azure customers can also test the preview using the Azure Cloud Shell in their browsers or in the Windows Terminal.
Finally, it is mentioned that Java 11 binaries (based on OpenJDK 11.0.10 + 9) are provided for x64 desktop / server deployments on macOS, Linux, and Windows.