BEA, Intel Fine-Tune JVMs for Windows and Linux

by Kristin Palitza

Intel is now supporting BEA Systems' new Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and committed to work closely with BEA to fine-tune the JVM for Windows and Linux operating systems. With this deal, BEA gives its customers another choice of platforms to run its J2EE software products. The JVM, based on the JRockit technology BEA acquired from Appeal Virtual Machines AB, will improve performance of BEA's WebLogic Enterprise Platform on 32-bit and 64-bit Intel Architecture-compatible operating systems.

BEA bought Helsinki, Norway-based Appeal Virtual Machines in a stock purchase transaction last week, after it realized that JVMs from other vendors have not brought the best performance for BEA's software on machines using Intel processors. Financials terms of the deal were not disclosed. A JVM is an execution environment for Java programs that is embedded in most modern operating systems; the JVM does the work of translating Java code into the machine code for a specific hardware platform. It is the JVMs that make Java portable--a Java application should be able to run on any JVM, though each JVM is written specifically for a single platform.

Appeal's product, JRockit, is designed for large-scale, enterprise server-side execution of Java applications and includes technology around I/O, memory management, and multi-threading, BEA said. It said it will work to optimize the JVM for multiple platforms, but did not give details of what this optimization process will technically entail. Sources close to the subject reckon that BEA will not only make its product smoothly run on Intel, but plans to eventually ready the JVM to work on all server platforms.

"With the increasing platform heterogeneity in the enterprise, the acquisition of Appeal's JVM is an important move for BEA," said IDC research manager Michele Rosen. Currently, BEA's products are mainly running on Unix servers, such as those from Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard, and their JVMs are optimized for RISC-Unix environments, not for Wintel and Lintel platforms. Therefore, the number of current BEA customers using Intel-based servers is relatively low, compared to customers using RISC-Unix servers.

"This move will keep BEA in the lead," reckoned Randy Heffner, Giga Information Group vice president of application architecture. "Intel servers have a good price point, are broadly distributed, and are quite pervasive." In the $2.25 billion-a-year market for J2EE application servers, BEA ranks first with 36 percent market share, followed closely by IBM with 34 percent, according to Giga. Those two are far ahead of the rest of the pack. Sun's iPlanet has 7 percent market share, and Oracle has 5 percent.

Having more BEA WebLogic customers the software running on Intel-based servers would bring Intel closer to its goal to move into the Web services and e-commerce arena--a field where its Unix rivals already secured themselves a seat.

"BEA's acquisition of Appeal's Java Virtual Machines is important to extending our ability to operate on any hardware platform," said BEA founder, president and CEO Alfred Chuang. "With JRockit, we are able to offer very high performance Java-based technologies to our customers who are on Intel-based servers."

There is yet another reason for BEA's strong need to buy its own JVM. Besides BEA, the only one other company, which owns a JVM optimized for Intel-based machines, is IBM, BEA's arch rival--and it is hard to imagine that BEA likes to make itself dependent on its biggest competitor. "BEA invested in Appeal to be able to control its own destiny, how well it performs, and how well it delivers on an Intel platform," Heffner said.

Intel and BEA have set themselves a high goal. They said they aim to bring to market "the highest performing and most cost-effective computing platforms available".

BEA said it run WebLogic on Intel utilizing its JVM during a ECperf benchmark test and claims it achieved 47 percent more performance at 25 percent lower price per transaction than the closest competitor--IBM's WebSphere. The test was run results were achieved on two Intel-based servers running four Pentium III Xeon processors at 900 MHz on the Windows operating system and two clustered HP LT6000R NetServers. ECperf is an industry-standard benchmark.

Vendors like Compaq Computer Corp, Dell Computer Corp, and NCR Corp said they will sell Intel-based servers loaded with BEA software, Intel reportedly said.

BEA hopes the move will bring it closer to the enterprise, since its software products will now be able to run in Windows. It was a clever move to enter this market, since Microsoft--with its .Net strategy a Java rival--would do nothing to foster J2EE and therefore BEA, Heffner said.