EJVM: an economic Java run-time environment for embedded devices

• Published in: Software, practice & experience practice & experience, 2001-02, Vol.31 (2), p.129-146
• Main Authors: Chang, Da-Wei, Chang, Ruei-Chuan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: embedded system; Java virtual machine; memory footprint
• ISSN: 0038-0644; 1097-024X
• DOI: 10.1002/1097-024X(200102)31:2<129::AID-SPE359>3.0.CO;2-1

As network‐enabled embedded devices and Java grow in their popularity, embedded system researchers start seeking ways to make these devices Java‐enabled. However, it is a challenge to apply Java technology to these devices due to their shortage of resources. In this paper, we propose EJVM (Economic Java Virtual Machine), an economic way to run Java programs on network‐enabled and resource‐limited embedded devices. Espousing the architecture proposed by distributed JVM, we store all Java codes on the server to reduce the storage needs of the client devices. In addition, we use two novel techniques to reduce the client‐side memory footprints: server‐side class representation conversion and on‐demand bytecode loading. Finally, we maintain client‐side caches and provide performance evaluation on different caching policies. We implement EJVM by modifying a freely available JVM implementation, Kaffe. From the experiment results, we show that EJVM can reduce Java heap requirements by about 20–50% and achieve 90% of the original performance. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.