ENTERTAINMENT

JSR stands for Java Specification Request. JSR-284 aims at defining a resource consumption management API for applications written in Java, the language created by Sun Microsystems. France's INRIA/Irisa research team ACES is part of this effort. Together with Google, IBM, BEA Systems, Intel, Nokia, Siemens, Motorola and EPFL, INRIA is part of an expert group working on a new Java Specification Request (JSR). The group has been working for over a year. Final approval of the JSR is expected by mid-December 2006. Having previously worked at Sun in Palo Alto on this topic, Ciarán Bryce was asked into the project. He is a research director at INRIA/Irisa and a member of ACES, the institute’s research team that specializes in ambient computing. “The use of Java is quickly expanding worldwide, he explains. And one simply can’t allow it to grow unchecked. Each extension has to take into account the needs of a huge number of developers and be compatible with what already exists. Every change must go through a JSR process for this reason.” Each JSR is dedicated to resolving a technical problem. JSR-284 defines an API that focuses on resource management. “The aim of resource management is to ascertain the quantity of CPU and other platform resources being used by applications. We need to measure these quantities when we run big computer systems and also control the quantities consumed by applications. Otherwise, we can’t develop scalable and robust systems.” In the past, when they wrote Java programs, developers didn’t know the percentage of CPU utilization or memory consumption. They had no way of controlling network usage or the number of database connections established. There was simply no hold on resources. “But consumption control is primordial with the Java environment growing and going ever more multi-user, Bryce says. Operating systems are resource management capable. But, until now… Java wasn’t.” This new capability “proves very interesting for grid computing for instance”, where thousands of geographically spread-out processors can be used simultaneously. But there is more: utility computing. The idea is to gain a better view of how the grid’s resources are being used. And then… charge this to customer. “Take web hosting for instance. The host can charge not only for disk space and bandwidth, but also the amount of CPU been used.” Resource management improves protection denial of service attacks as well. According to Bryce, “Java already offers security. Platforms written in Java can’t be attacked in many of the ways that Windows or Linux platforms can. This is because the language doesn’t allow direct manipulation over memory. A program can’t mistake code for data. Typically viruses take advantage of possible confusion between these two in some systems, which is not possible in Java. This is also one of the reasons that the Java world will keep growing.” As Sun president Jonathan Schwartz, recently boasted, “there are now 4 billion devices running Java”. It “out-ships the Solaris platform, the GNU Linux platform, Windows platform, the Mac, Symbian…You name it! The Java platform out-ships them all… COMBINED! We are on nearly 8 out of every 10 phones that are shipped in the world.” Ciarán Bryce remarks that, “now, 98% of processors in the world do not reside in computers, but are embedded in cars or all kind of appliances”.