CRM-OO-VM: a checkpointing-enabled Java VM for efficient and reliable e-science applications in grids

Abstract

Object-oriented programming languages are in current days, the dominant paradigm of application development (mostly Java and .NET languages). Recently, increasingly more Java applications have long (or very long) execution times and manipulate large amounts of data/information, gaining relevance in fields related with e-Science (with Grid and Cloud computing). Significant examples include chemistry, computational biology and bio-informatics, with many available Java-based APIs (e.g., Neobio). Often, when the execution of one of those applications is terminated abruptly due to a failure (regardless of it being caused by hardware of software fault, lack of available resources,...), all of its work already carried out is simply lost and, when the application is later re-executed, it has to restart its work from scratch, wasting resources and time, and being prone to another failure, to delay its completion with no deadline guarantees. A possible solution to solve these problems, is through mechanisms of checkpoint and migration. This makes applications more robust and flexible by being able to move to other nodes, without intervention from the programmer. This article provides a solution to Java applications with long execution times, by incorporating such mechanisms in a Java VM (JikesRVM).