News

AWS Previews OpenJDK Service for Java Development

• By David Ramel
• 11/15/2018

Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS) launched a preview service based on its own build of the Open Java Development Kit (OpenJDK).

As a value-add to the new Amazon Corretto preview, AWS promised Java developers that its version of the popular open source kit can be used along with long-term support from the company.

Furthermore, AWS will use its developer resources and institutional experience with mega-scale, real-world Corretto scenarios to enhance the core OpenJDK build with patches that include security fixes and performance enhancements, garbage collection scheduling and preventing out-of-memory situations, along with other benefits such as better monitoring, reporting and thread management. OpenJDK is a free, open source implementation of the Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE), backed by major development-related firms such as Oracle, Red Hat, IBM, Apple and more.

The Java ecosystem has long been entangled by legal squabbles, and the OpenJDK's GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) Version 2 licensing may make it an attractive option for enterprise Java development. By adding support to the offering, AWS is seeking to make it even more attractive.

"Java is one of the most popular languages in use by AWS customers, and we are committed to supporting Java and keeping it free," said Arun Gupta in an AWS blog post yesterday (Nov. 14). "Many of our customers have become concerned that they would have to pay for a long-term supported version of Java to run their workloads."

He noted previous AWS support of Java for its Amazon Linux distro and added: "However, our customers and the broader Java community run Java on a variety of platforms, both on and off of AWS. That’s why we are happy to announce the preview of Amazon Corretto, a no-cost, multiplatform, production-ready distribution of OpenJDK from Amazon."

Expected to be generally available in the first quarter of next year, Corretto will ship with Ubuntu and Red Hat Enterprise Linux platforms, with the initial preview offering (Corretto 8, corresponding to OpenJDK 8) able to run in the cloud, on-premises or on local machines, with initial platform support including Amazon Linux 2, Microsoft Windows, macOS and Docker images.

AWS assured Java developers using Corretto that they will receive free support for years to come: "Amazon will distribute security updates to Corretto 8 at no cost until at least June, 2023, and to Corretto 11 until at least August, 2024. Corretto includes targeted backports from newer releases, as well as newly-developed enhancements from the OpenJDK community. The release process includes testing on thousands of Amazon services, which makes it possible for fixes to be released within days of finding issues."

The preview can be downloaded here.