Boost Java 8 Workloads with Oracle’s Enterprise Performance Pack

Oracle announced the Java SE Subscription Enterprise Performance Pack, positioning it as a direct replacement for JDK 8 and providing Java 17‑level performance improvements to traditional Java 8 server workloads. The pack is freely available to all Java SE subscription customers and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) users.

The Enterprise Performance Pack delivers major memory‑management and performance enhancements introduced between JDK 8 and JDK 17, such as modern garbage‑collection algorithms, compact strings, enhanced observability, and dozens of other optimizations.

Java 8, released in 2014, remains a widely used long‑term‑support (LTS) version despite its age, with the 2022 New Relic Java Ecosystem Report showing that 46.45% of production Java applications still run on Java 8.

The pack supports headless Linux 64‑bit workloads on Intel and Arm‑based systems (e.g., Ampere Altra). Oracle reports that customers using the Enterprise Performance Pack see immediate benefits, with tests on Oracle’s own products and cloud services showing roughly 40% improvements in memory usage and performance for high‑load applications, and up to 5% gains even when not near capacity.

While many improvements are available through default settings, Oracle advises users to consult the documentation to maximize performance and minimize memory consumption—for example, enabling the scalable low‑latency ZGC garbage collector with the -XX:+UseZGC option.

Related link: Oracle Java SE Subscription Enterprise Performance Pack announcement