Java's virtual threads, debuted in JDK 19 and refined in JDK 21, are shaking up the world of concurrency. They promise to handle millions of threads without the heavy memory and scheduling costs of traditional OS threads. Picture a high-speed assembly line where each worker is lightweight and agile, all working seamlessly together.
We put these virtual threads to the test against Open Liberty's adaptive thread pool, which intelligently adjusts its size based on workload. The results were eye-opening: virtual threads excelled at quickly scaling up during sudden spikes but sometimes lagged in raw performance and memory efficiency compared to Liberty's finely tuned pool. Adding to the intrigue, we found some quirky performance issues linked to specific Linux kernels.
Curious how these findings could impact your applications? Check out our Case Study on Java Virtual Threads for an exciting deep dive into the performance dynamics of virtual threads and Liberty's thread pool!
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[Claudia] [Beisiegel]
[Customer Engagement Product Manager]
[IBM]
[San Carlos] [CA]
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