Microsoft buys jClarity to boost Java on Azure
- 20 August, 2019 06:00
With its acquisition of Java support services company jClarity, Microsoft is making a play to optimise Java workloads on its Azure cloud platform.
Microsoft calls jClarity the leading contributor to the AdoptOpenJDK project, which provides free, open source OpenJDK binaries. Microsoft has been a sponsor of AdoptOpenJDK, which has provided binaries for both Windows and Linux.
“In the last few years, Microsoft’s usage of Java has grown and now includes multiple large-scale deployments, such as Azure HDInsight and Minecraft,” wrote John Montgomery, corporate vice president, Microsoft, via a company blog post.
“Additionally, Microsoft customers like Adobe, Daimler and Société Générale have brought their Java production workloads to Azure. With more than half of compute workloads running on Linux, Azure has become a great platform for open source, and that certainly includes Java.”
The jClarity team is well-versed in the JVM and has helped customers optimise Java applications while also being active in the Java open source community, Microsoft said in a statement.
Usage of Java at Microsoft has grown in the last few years. Large-scale Java deployments include the AzureHDInsight analytics service and Minecraft.
“Microsoft Azure and jClarity engineers will be working together to make Azure a better platform for our Java customers, and internal teams, improving the experience and performance of the platform for Java developers and end-users,” Montgomery added.
Terms of the acquisition will see CEO of jClarity, Martijn Verburg, assume a management position within the Principal Engineering Group Manager (Java) at Microsoft.
“It’s always been jClarity’s core mission to support the Java ecosystem,” Verburg added. “We started with our world-class performance tooling and then later became a leader in the AdoptOpenJDK project. “Microsoft leads the world in backing developers and their communities, and after speaking to their engineering and programme leadership, it was a no brainer to enter formal discussions.”