BellSoft cares about our clients’ success, first and foremost. Successful people know that you need to constantly improve yourself to stay the best. And to do so it is important to build a support system consisting of your colleagues, friends and family.
And in that way, people are not unlike the Java applications. To stay on top they require updating, enhancing and staying safe. And reliable support is a critical factor in letting that happen.
In this article, we will discuss the value of JDK support for your software development projects, find out how it helps in enhancing your apps, discover some cases where it was crucial, and present the principles that BellSoft utilizes in building the support system for our main product — Liberica JDK.
But before that, we would like to start with finding the answer to what we call “the most important question” related to the well-being of your apps.
Contents
- The most important question about your app
- The support system for your Java applications
- How (and why) the reliable support works
- BellSoft is here to support you
The most important question about your app
There are many aspects in programming requiring your attention, but all of them should be based on one simple question:
Does my application actually work the way I want it to?
And although the first response that comes to mind is usually “Of course it does,” it is not always honest. As we already discussed, to stay successful, the program has to be constantly improved and enhanced. Are you sure this is what happens to your product?
If you can honestly answer “yes” to these questions — congratulations, that is a great achievement, and it’s likely that you have a team dedicated to Java runtime support! But if you feel that you should focus on improvement more, then we have a solution. Just like successful people, your amazing apps need a support system from a reliable source (that is BellSoft with its engineers) to function.
The support system for your Java applications
It is no mystery that building a support system is one of the most effective ways for true leaders to stay on the top. Statistically, successful people usually enjoy support from many sources: family, coworkers, friends. And similarly, your apps require some help from your team, and for them to receive it, some workload needs to be taken off from your developers and technical support engineers.
Good support is supposed to take care of the runtime issues, keep your Java app stable and protected, and let your people work on implementing new features. But that does not always happen, as most of the developers are not satisfied with the level of technical support they receive.
So there is a cry for help from developers. And the answer we found in BellSoft is building a JDK support system based on these principles:
- “Safety first.” We understand that your business needs to be protected. We know the value of security;
- “Always ready.” You don’t have to wait for days to get your answer. We are always there to help you as fast as possible;
- “Skip the middleman.” The people who work on our product are the same people who help you with it;
- “Solve for one — solve for everyone.” Every reported bug or issue we solve is fixed in the next update so that you won’t encounter it;
- “Pay for what you need.” We don’t think that good support should be unaffordable. We offer many support plans and customize them according to your needs. We also make an effort to make it clear what you are paying for and how it helps you immediately and in the long run;
- “We create Java™ to help you.” Our developers are members of the OpenJDK Vulnerability Group and Java Community Process Executive Committee, so we use our experience to make Java™ better for everyone;
How (and why) the reliable support works
These are the two most dangerous problems that can affect the runtime environment:
Your apps don’t function well
They are becoming slow, crash, or just refuse to start up. That means losing uptime, then money, resources, and ultimately clients.
Your apps are not secure
There are many ways to steal or manipulate the information they use, even if you work behind the firewall, and new ways of doing it appear constantly.
Enjoying our support means leaving all these issues to us to solve promptly.
The reliable support can help you with
- Being sure you work in the certified, proven to be safe runtime environment with all the latest security vulnerabilities patched. Choosing an obscure Java runtime or some “work-in-progress build” can lead to unexpected faulty updates that crash everything;1
- Freeing the time of your developers to enhance your app and add the new features;
- Removing the need to hire the costly talent with a particular set of security skills;
- Not worrying about security and keeping a stable runtime environment to run your apps.
Here are just a few cases where our engineers solved client’s problems:
Case 1. Mysterious crashes
Client: The cloud computing and virtualization technology company.
Description: Our client developed the new project that kept crashing on any version of OpenJDK.
Solution: In a very short time we made the fix to the runtime code and it worked from the first try. We made a hotfix for the client and added the solution to the next security patch.
Case 2. How to fix the 20-year old bug
Client: QZ, Developer of printing API.
Description: Print quality was severely degraded.
Solution: We started working on the issue the day it was submitted. It turned out to be a multi-facet problem that arose from several bugs, including one that was over 20 years old. We also had to communicate with a third-party open source project developers to change its public API.
As the issue was print quality related, it was paramount for our client’s product. It made QZ abandon the previous JDK support provider they had and turn to BellSoft for fixing the problem. In case that solution did not work, the client would have been ready to abandon the ecosystem for good.
“I wish I had discovered BellSoft 6 years ago, we had hit too many dead-ends with other providers. We were prepared to leave Java altogether. With BellSoft, not only is the response time the best we’ve had, but the knowledge and perseverance are the defining difference for our company. In our case, an age-old Java bug was patched but it uncovered more issues, which BellSoft promptly patched as well. This was no small feat; BellSoft asked a downstream project to permanently change its public API, which they did. This level of follow-through and professionalism is a trait we share with BellSoft and is the key to a successful product.”
Tres Finocchiaro,
Lead Programmer, QZ Tray desktop software
Case 3. Overheating the Pi
Client: The OpenJDK community.
Description: There is a Raspberry Pi ARM port of OpenJDK (mostly written by people who work at BellSoft). At some point after many updates the runtime started to overload the processor making running any application impossible.2
Solution: Our engineers created a fix that solved the issue and promptly submitted it. Just another example of BellSoft free work for the developer community.
BellSoft is here to support you!
If any of the issues we listed sound familiar, do not fret! We welcome you to join our support system, choose the plan that suits your needs and experience the new life of your apps, where they grow, get better and receive new features constantly. After all, as the wise man said: “If you don’t have the support of others you cannot achieve anything altogether on your own.”
