JCSE, vol. 6, no. 1, pp.26-38, March, 2012

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5626/JCSE.2012.6.1.26

Time-Predictable Java Dynamic Compilation on Multicore Processors

Yu Sun, Wei Zhang
Mathworks, Boston, MA, USA/ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

Abstract: Java has been increasingly used in programming for real-time systems. However, some of Java’s features such as automatic memory management and dynamic compilation are harmful to time predictability. If these problems are not solved properly then it can fundamentally limit the usage of Java for real-time systems, especially for hard real-time systems that require very high time predictability. In this paper, we propose to exploit multicore computing in order to reduce the timing unpredictability that is caused by dynamic compilation and adaptive optimization. Our goal is to retain high performance comparable to that of traditional dynamic compilation, while at the same time, obtain better time predictability for Java virtual machine (JVM). We have studied pre-compilation techniques to utilize another core more efficiently, preoptimization on another core (PoAC) scheme to replace the adaptive optimization system (AOS) in Jikes JVM and the counter based optimization (CBO). Our evaluation reveals that the proposed approaches are able to attain high performance while greatly reducing the variation of the execu

Keyword: Performance; Reliability; Time predictability; Java virtual machine; Multicore processors; Adaptive

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