Azul has launched JVM Inventory to address the risks associated with migrating off of Oracle Java. It continuously monitors running JVMs, providing a comprehensive catalogue of all the interactions a JVM makes. This allows teams to identify each JVM, its licensing, whether it is part of a third-party package and its usage. That data allows migration teams to understand the impact of any migration before they take action.
Scott Sellers, CEO and Co-Founder of Azul, said, “Azul has always been committed to solving the hardest Java challenges for our customers, and JVM Inventory paired with the Azul Migration Toolkit is a perfect example of that innovation in action.
“By giving enterprises unprecedented visibility into their Java environments with actionable intelligence from runtime data, we’re not only simplifying Oracle Java migrations, we’re also helping organisations take control of their Java subscription costs, reduce audit risk and ensure long-term compliance. It’s a powerful step forward for companies looking to future-proof their Java strategy.”
Oracle licensing is forcing companies to look elsewhere
Driving the need for a deeper understanding of Java environments is Oracle’s current licensing policy for Java SE. The move to per-employee subscription costs has increased the cost significantly. Azul claims that customers are facing a 2x-5x increase in their costs for using Java.
Despite surveys showing that customers want to migrate, many lack the detailed knowledge of their Java usage. That means that any attempt to move can have unexpected impacts on the business.
However, moving from Oracle Java to an OpenJDK alternative is far more complex than many organisations realise. According to Azul’s customer surveys, the average migration time using traditional tooling is 6-9 months.
To simplify that migration process, Azul had developed a suite of tools backed by migration teams from Azul and its partners. JVM Inventory is the latest tool it has delivered to ease migration and is part of the larger Azul Intelligence Cloud. It also provides information that is consumed by the Azul Migration Toolkit, which helps organisations identify their Oracle Java footprint.
What does JVM Inventory enable?
JVM Inventory gathers data from the JVM, including runtime data. That data includes the JVM vendor, version, installation location and the applications running on it. It is capable of detecting JVMs even when they are used in container environments, as it detects them as they are instantiated.
The announcement lists two ways in which it can be used and what it delivers in both scenarios. When used as a standalone tool to discover and inventory Java instances, it can:
- Accurately classify and prioritise Oracle Java installations for replacement or removal.
- Enable teams to migrate efficiently off Oracle by continuously tracking their JVMs.
- Help ensure ongoing compliance, once migrated off, by detecting any new running Oracle Java instances throughout the enterprise.
Azul, however, expects customers and migration teams to use JVM Inventory as part of their migration process. In that role it:
- Provides the most accurate, complete Oracle Java discovery information for migration.
- Reduces a company’s migration risks with quicker, more accurate classification of their Oracle Java instances.
- Accelerates application owner identification and notification that Oracle JVMs will be replaced.
- Helps to ensure that Oracle Java stays out for compliance and possible audit defence.
This is not just about documentation, compliance and migration. Once organisations have migrated away from Oracle Java, Azul says that JVM Inventory will help them keep Oracle Java out of their environments. This is because JVM Inventory continuously monitors for any running JVM and gathers data on it.
Enterprise Times: What does this mean?
Oracle has been increasing the pricing of Java as it seeks to extract maximum revenue from the product. The move to per-employee licensing has hit many organisations hard. As with any product, there is always a core of users willing to say they want to migrate. The reality, however, is that migration is hard and the numbers who do migrate is often much smaller than those who claim to be doing it.
However, those recent pricing increases by Oracle and the increasing risk of being audited have changed attitudes. There are now more customers talking about migration and following through by deploying migration tools. The problem for many is that many of those tools do not yet deliver the detail required to migrate effectively to OpenJDK. And that becomes a drag on the ability to migrate.
Azul says it can change that. With the addition of JVM Inventory, it believes it now has all the elements required to fully document, track and detail every JVM used by an organisation. That allows it to show customers what their actual licence position is, allowing them to calculate their costs. Additionally, by being able to do that degree of tracking and discovery, it makes it easier to move to an OpenJDK solution.
It will be interesting to see in the next yearly State of Java report from Azul what the rate of migration away from Oracle really is.
