Högskolan i Skövde

Software engineering architectures, such as microservices and serverless, have been increasingly adopted for their ability to address architectural challenges through a modular approach. This modularity involves isolating components and assigning them specific responsibilities independently of other components. Java, a computationally robust language, is frequently utilized in microservice architectures; however, the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) is often criticized for its slow and unpredictable startup times in these environments. This study investigates the startup time, response time, and CPU load of Java services compiled with either the JVM or GraalVM. A microservice system comprising three testable Java services was developed and monitored to identify any differences in the aforementioned metrics. The results indicate that GraalVM outperforms the JVM in terms of startup time. However, the impact of GraalVM on response time is not statistically significant enough to reject the null hypothesis. Additionally, GraalVM demonstrates lower CPU usage during cold starts. From an environmental perspective it is important to note that the shortened start time potentially comes at the cost of an increased development time depending on the complexity of the system and the seniority of the developer.