Jalapeņo is a Java Virtual Machine developed at the IBM T. J. Watson
Research Center.
Key features of Jalapeņo include
- the entire virtual machine (VM) is implemented in Java,
- the VM utilizes two compilers and no interpreter,
- a family of parallel, type-exact garbage collectors,
- a lightweight thread package with compiler-supported preemption,
- an aggressive optimizing compiler, and
- a flexible online adaptive compilation infrastructure.
The best paper for a general introduction to Jalapeņo is the
IBM Systems Journal, January 2000
paper
For introductions to the
optimizing compiler and adaptive system, see the
1999 ACM Java Grande
and
OOPSLA
papers, respectively.
To address the requirements of servers, performance and
scalability in particular, Jalapeņo was designed from scratch to be as
self-sufficient as possible.
Runtime services conventionally provided in native code are
implemented in Java. Java threads are multiplexed by virtual
processors implemented as operating system threads.
A family of concurrent object allocators and parallel type-accurate
garbage collectors is supported. Two inter-operable compilers enable
quasi-preemptive thread switching and precise location of
object references. Jalapeņo's optimizing compiler
obtains high quality code for methods that are observed to be
frequently executed and/or computationally intensive.
Jalapeņo currently (April 15, 2001) runs on AIX/PowerPC architecture.
A port to Linux/IA32 is in progress; minimal functionality is already
available.
Several
universities are using
Jalapeņo as a research infrastructure.
If you are at an academic institution and interested in using
Jalapeņo for your research,
contact
Michael Hind or
Mark Mergen.
Jalapeņo web page.
JavaTM is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.
For problems or questions regarding this web contact hind@watson.ibm.com
Last updated: April 15th, 2001