The Application Memory Wall - thoughts on the state of the art in Garbage Collection

The original "memory wall" first predicted in the mid 1990's was supposed to have emerged by now, with applications stretching server capabilities to their limits. However, today's typical application instance only utilizes 5-10% of a modern server's capacity, and the percentage is dropping. In this session, Gil Tene (CTO, Azul Systems) discusses the Application Memory Wall and and the likely causes of an observed decade-long stagnation in application instance memory growth and consumption. Gil will analyze the key technical challenges that have led to the emergence of the Application Memory Wall, reviewing the relevant state of the art in garbage collection within managed runtimes in general, and in commercial Java Virtual Machines in particular. Gil will outline the main technical problem areas that need industry attention and focus, and shows how solving these problems can lead to a post-Wall era - an era in which applications will once again be free to productively and naturally consume the abundant compute resources available in modern servers.