NICTA Embedded Systems Public Seminar

Real-time Java and Real-time Garbage Collection

Dr Tomas Kalibera, Charles University, Czech Republic

Time/Venue

Wednesday, 10th March 2010, 10:00am

NICTA, Neville Roach Laboratory, Level 1 Seminar Room, 223 Anzac Parade (Building L5), Kensington NSW 2052

Abstract

Java is slowly getting attention as a potential platform of choice for real-time systems of the future. The interesting features of Java desirable for real-time systems include dynamic allocation, garbage collection, type safety, and integrated multi-threading. Java is known to a high number of programmers and has a rich library and tool support. Real-time Specification for Java (RTSJ) extends the Java Virtual Machine and Java APIs with support for real-time applications. Despite several successful demonstrator case studies, significant research and engineering challenges remain: repeatability, real-time garbage collection, and footprint.

In standard Java, the garbage collector can stop the application to do its work when memory is replenished. A real-time garbage collector must, however, be interruptible by the application at any time. Scheduling the collector is particularly difficult. If the collector gets too much CPU, the application may miss its deadlines. If it gets too little, the system may run out of memory and crash. The talk will focus on real-time garbage collection for Java and on collector scheduling, presenting the Minuteman real-time garbage collector framework for Ovm.

Biography:

Tomas Kalibera is an assistant professor at Charles University, Czech Republic. From 2007 to 2009 he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Purdue University on real-time garbage collection and real-time Java. At Purdue, he contributed to Ovm real-time Java virtual machine. He received his Ph.D. from Charles University in 2006 - his dissertation was in the field of performance evaluation of computer systems. His masters project was an implementation of a software component model for C++ applications. Tomas also worked as a programmer for Idoox, Inc. (now part of HP) and for the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute.