Research Article

The design and implementation of a modular and extensible Java Virtual Machine

  1. Patrick Doyle,
  2. Carlos Cavanna,
  3. Tarek S. Abdelrahman*

Article first published online: 5 JAN 2004

DOI: 10.1002/spe.565

Issue

Software: Practice and Experience

Software: Practice and Experience

Volume 34, Issue 3, pages 287–313, March 2004

Additional Information

How to Cite

Doyle, P., Cavanna, C. and Abdelrahman, T. S. (2004), The design and implementation of a modular and extensible Java Virtual Machine. Software: Practice and Experience, 34: 287–313. doi: 10.1002/spe.565

Author Information

  1. Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3G4

*Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, 10 King's College Road, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3G4

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 13 FEB 2004
  2. Article first published online: 5 JAN 2004
  3. Manuscript Accepted: 11 JUL 2003
  4. Manuscript Revised: 10 JUL 2003
  5. Manuscript Received: 11 SEP 2002

Funded by

  • NSERC
  • CITO

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Keywords:

  • Java Virtual Machines (JVMs);
  • modular and extensible design;
  • JVM infrastructures;
  • design for scalability

Abstract

This paper describes the design, implementation, and experimental evaluation of a modular and extensible Java™ Virtual Machine (JVM) infrastructure, called Jupiter. The infrastructure is intended to serve as a vehicle for our research on scalable JVM architectures for a cluster of PC workstations, with support for shared memory in software. Jupiter is constructed, using a building block architecture, out of many modules with small, simple interfaces. This flexible structure, similar to UNIX® shells that build complex command pipelines out of discrete programs, allows the rapid prototyping of our research ideas by confining changes in JVM design to a small number of modules. In spite of this flexibility, Jupiter delivers good performance. Experimental evaluation of the current implementation of Jupiter using the SPECjvm98 and the EPCC Java Grande single-threaded and multithreaded benchmarks reflects competitive performance. Jupiter is on average about 2.5 times faster than Kaffe and about 2 times slower than the Sun Microsystems JDK (interpreter versions only). By providing a flexible JVM infrastructure that delivers competitive performance, we believe we have developed a framework that supports further research into JVM scalability. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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