We all know that Prometheus is a popular system for collecting and querying metrics, especially in the cloud native world of Kubernetes and ephemeral instances. But people forget that Java has been running enterprise software since 1995, while Prometheus is a relative newcomer to the scene. It was only created in 2012! Even though Java has had its own metric collectors since before Prometheus was born, none of our new environments speak its (metric) language. How can you bridge that gap?

Application developers and application operations personnel are together responsible for ensuring that Java web applications perform well. In an earlier blog, we had discussed 7 configurations that Application Operations teams can use to make their Java applications high-performing. In this blog, we will focus on Application Developers and discuss 6 ways in which they can enhance the performance of their Java applications.

As important as adding new features, app developers need to start placing more emphasis on the security aspect of the applications they design. After all, more app features mean more data residing within an app. Without proper security controls in place, that data can be vulnerable to intruders.

There has been a lingering perception that Java applications are slower than applications written in other languages. So, if performance is important for your application, you should not be considering Java as the programming language to use. This perception was true about 20 years ago, when Java was initially used for developing applications. In the early Java implementations, it took a long time for the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) to start.

It has been 25 years since Java came into existence, and it is still one of the preferred platforms among enterprise applications. As technologies evolved, Java's functionality and programming flexibility also matured in parallel, positioning it as a relevant language for over two decades. New memory management systems and garbage collection algorithms are an outstanding example of this evolution.

From AliExpress to Forbes, Starbucks, Instagram, George, Trivago, Uber, and Medium, a vast number of top brands have switched to the PWA environment and recorded a significant rise in their ROI. Especially, in terms of faster app loading & higher customer engagement and retention rate. These brands have not just unveiled the numbers publicly, but have also encouraged others to step into the PWA development world.

Long before Dockerfiles, Java developers worked with single deployment units (WARs, JARs, EARs, etc.). As you likely know by now, it is best practice to work in micro-services, deploying a small number of deployment units per JVM. Instead of one giant, monolithic application, you build your application such that each service can run on its own. This is where Docker comes in!