Sunnyvale, CA, Sept. 25, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --
- Azul Systems is making fully compatible and compliant commercial builds of Java SE available for Java developers on Microsoft Azure via a new strategic collaboration with Microsoft
- Azul Systems will provide fully-supported Zulu Enterprise builds of OpenJDK for Azure for all long-term support (LTS) versions of Java, starting with Java SE 7, 8, and 11
- New Java offering is designed to make Azure-based Java deployments worry-free by incorporating quarterly security updates and bug fixes
Azul Systems, the award-winning leader in Java runtime solutions, today announced a new collaboration with Microsoft. The new Azul and Microsoft initiative is designed to ensure that Java developers and Java-based businesses using Microsoft Azure have access to fully-supported, certified, open source builds of OpenJDK with timely security updates and bug fixes – without incurring additional licensing or support costs.
Announcement Background
The Java SE landscape is undergoing a change in release cadence and support availability. In September 2017, Oracle announced the end of free public security updates and platform bug fixes for Java SE 8 and Java SE 11, effective January 2019. This announcement was in addition to the introduction of a six-month cadence of future Java releases, and the designation of long term support (LTS) versions of Java SE to be released every three years.
Azul’s Zulu Enterprise builds of OpenJDK are compatible and compliant builds of OpenJDK that have been extensively tested and certified by Azul Systems. As with Oracle’s commercially supported Java SE products, Azul’s builds of OpenJDK have quarterly security updates and bug fixes, which are also an integral part of Azul’s offering for Azure.
To help ensure that Azure customers are able to adopt new releases of Java at their own pace, Azul provides long term support (LTS) for major releases of Java SE, starting with Java 7 and 8, and the newly-released Java 11. This support includes back porting of security updates and bug fixes to Java 7 and 8 reported in newer versions of Java such as Java 11, and ensures the continued stability and security of older versions of Java. The chart below highlights the announced support for Zulu Enterprise on Microsoft Azure:
Chart link: https://assets.azul.com/files/Zulu-Enterprise-Java-Support-Lifecycle-for-Azure-and-Azure-Stack-.png
Oracle Java SE Support roadmap: https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/eol-135779.html
Azul Systems Java SE roadmap: https://www.azul.com/products/azul_support_roadmap/
Perspective on the new Azul Systems and Microsoft Java initiative
“For the past year, many aspects of the Java landscape have been in transition”, said John Abbott, co-founder and Distinguished Analyst at 451 Research. “Developers need certainty and the assurance of continuing support and maintenance for their technology platform of choice. Microsoft will help to provide that assurance through its collaboration with Azul, a long-established contributor of innovation to the Java community.”
“We have been delivering certified builds of OpenJDK to Microsoft for more than five years,” said Scott Sellers, Azul Systems president and CEO. “With today’s announcement we extend our collaboration by standing with Microsoft to deliver fully-supported builds of Zulu Enterprise to the community of Azure-based Java developers – at no additional cost to them -- for both development and production use.”
John Montgomery, Partner Director of Program Management for Developer Tools at Microsoft Corp. said, “Even as Java moves forward, there are many Java applications that depend on Java 7 and 8. We’re pleased to be able to work with Azul to support Java for our mutual customers, starting from Java 7, ensuring that customers can move forward to new versions of Java at their own pace, with confidence that they’ll be able to run on a compatible, supported, and secure Java platform for many years.”
Details of the new support for Java on Azure
Azul Systems will deliver certified production editions of Zulu Enterprise for use with Azure. These production editions of Zulu Enterprise are built, tested, and certified by Azul Systems and are supported by Azure Support and Azul Systems. Azure Stack Java developers will not have to pay license or support fees to any third party for Java SE support.
Additional information about this new capability for Java developers is available on the Azure blog at https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-and-azul-systems-bring-free-java-lts-support-to-azure/.
Availability
As a result of this new initiative, Azure-based Java developers will be able to consume certified, production-ready builds of OpenJDK from multiple locations and in a variety of package types. Furthermore, Azure users will also be able to build unlimited Docker images which include the supported Zulu Enterprise builds of OpenJDK using production editions of any Windows or Linux distros available on Azure.
Current distributions of Zulu Enterprise for Azure and Azure Stack users include the following:
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- Zulu packages for Azure via Apt repository: http://repos.azul.com/azure-only/zulu/apt/
- Zulu packages for Azure via Yum repository: http://repos.azul.com/azure-only/zulu/yum/
- Downloadable bundles for Azure are available on the Azul Azure Partner website at https://www.azul.com/downloads/azure-only/zulu/
- Zulu Docker images are available via the Microsoft Container Registry, located at http://mcr.microsoft.com/
- Zulu Dockerfiles are available from the Microsoft GitHub repository at http://github.com/microsoft/java/
- Machine images incorporating Zulu are also available for Ubuntu and Windows on the Azure Marketplace at: https://azuremarketplace.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/apps?search=zulu
About Azul Systems
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Azulsystems
Azul Systems, the industry’s only company exclusively focused on Java and the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), builds fully supported, certified standards-compliant Java runtime solutions that bring the power of Java to the enterprise, cloud, and embedded/IoT. Zing is a JVM designed for enterprise Java applications and workloads that require any combination of low latency, high transaction rates, large working memory, and/or consistent response times. Zulu is Azul’s certified, freely available open source build of OpenJDK with a variety of flexible support options, available in configurations for the enterprise, cloud, as well as custom and embedded/IoT devices. For additional information, visit https://www.azul.com.
Azul Systems, the Azul Systems logo, Zulu, Zing, and ReadyNow! are registered trademarks. Java and OpenJDK are trademarks of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliated companies in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.
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