JavaOne 2025: Advancing Java Profiling

Java developers struggle with the trade-off between precise profiling and application stability. Unofficial methods like AsyncGetCallTrace offer precision but risk crashes, while official APIs such as JVMTI, JMX, and StackWalker are stable but biased due to safepoint polling. Java Flight Recorder (JFR) reduces this bias but introduces interpolation errors. This talk addresses these challenges with three key topics: • Combining precise sampling with JFR’s stability to remove biases without sacrificing reliability. • Using eBPF probes and examining JVM internals for safer, detailed profiling. • Enhancing precision with user-supplied profiling contexts. We will review the history of Java profilers and discuss the future of JVM profiling, with a focus on CPU profiling. Attendees will gain insights into new methods aimed at achieving accurate, stable performance analysis in Java applications, comparing them with async-profiler and existing tools.

1. Advancing Java Profiling Achieving precision and stability with JFR, eBPF and user context Jaroslav Bachorik Staff Software Engineer, Datadog
2. So, what do you do for a living?
3. Java Profiling
4. ?
5. Tooling to collect data points to explain application performance and behaviour …
6. ???? ????
7. Helping to solve computer riddles … 🧌
8. … for last 20 years
9. What is hogging the CPU? How come the pod is OOM-killed? Are other processes influencing me? How to correlate performance metrics to my business The Riddles
10. JDK Flight Recorder (JFR) A lightweight JVM tool for profiling and diagnostics, capturing runtime events like method execution, GC, and thread activity with minimal overhead. Performance detective toolbox at your fingertips
11. JDK Flight Recorder (JFR) A lightweight JVM tool for profiling and diagnostics, capturing runtime events like method execution, GC, and thread activity with minimal overhead. Performance detective toolbox at your fingertips
12. What is hogging the CPU? How come the pod is OOM-killed? Are other processes influencing me? How to correlate performance metrics to my business The Riddles
13. What hogs my CPU? Also known as ‘CPU Profiling’ CPU usage at code locations - usually in form of stacktraces jdk.ExecutionSample - built-in JFR event to measure CPU usage
14. ExecutionSample event each N milliseconds capture five stacktraces pick next non-blocked Java thread suspend thread capture the thread stack resume thread :: end Thread list Runnable Blocked Processed: 0 Captured : 0 Errors: 0 ST 1 ST 2 ST 3 ST 5 ST 4
15. each N milliseconds capture five stacktraces pick next non-blocked Java thread suspend thread capture the thread stack resume thread :: end Thread list Runnable Blocked Processed: 0 Captured : 0 Errors: 0 ExecutionSample event ST 1 ST 2 ST 3 ST 5 ST 4
16. each N milliseconds capture five stacktraces pick next non-blocked Java thread suspend thread capture the thread stack resume thread :: end Thread list Runnable Blocked Processed: 1 Captured : 1 Errors: 0 ExecutionSample event ST 1 ST 2 ST 3 ST 5 ST 4
17. each N milliseconds capture five stacktraces pick next non-blocked Java thread suspend thread capture the thread stack resume thread :: end Thread list Runnable Blocked Processed: 2 Captured : 1 Errors: 0 ExecutionSample event ST 1 ST 2 ST 3 ST 5 ST 4
18. each N milliseconds capture five stacktraces pick next non-blocked Java thread suspend thread capture the thread stack resume thread :: end Thread list Runnable Blocked Processed: 2 Captured : 1 Errors: 1 X ExecutionSample event ST 1 ST 2 ST 3 ST 5 ST 4
19. each N milliseconds capture five stacktraces pick next non-blocked Java thread suspend thread capture the thread stack resume thread :: end Thread list Runnable Blocked Processed: 3 Captured : 1 Errors: 1 X ExecutionSample event ST 1 ST 2 ST 3 ST 5 ST 4
20. each N milliseconds capture five stacktraces pick next non-blocked Java thread suspend thread capture the thread stack resume thread :: end Thread list Runnable Blocked Processed: 3 Captured : 2 Errors: 1 X ExecutionSample event ST 1 ST 2 ST 3 ST 5 ST 4
21. each N milliseconds capture five stacktraces pick next non-blocked Java thread suspend thread capture the thread stack resume thread :: end Thread list Runnable Blocked Processed: 6 Captured : 5 Total : 8 Errors : 1 Blocked: 3 ExecutionSample event ST 1 ST 2 ST 3 ST 5 ST 4
22. Problems with ExecutionSample event T1 T4 10 ms time wrap around threads list 50 ms
23. Problems with ExecutionSample event T1 T4 10 ms time wrap around threads list 50 ms
24. Problems with ExecutionSample event Effective Sampling Period
25. Problems with ExecutionSampleEvent Effective Sampling Period Scales linearly with thread count and stack-walk error rate
26. Problems with ExecutionSampleEvent Effective Sampling Period No clear relation between CPU and samples
27. [1] https://speakerdeck.com/parttimenerd/inner-workings-of-safepoints [2] https://psy-lob-saw.blogspot.com/2015/12/safepoints.html Safepoints, anybody?
28. Symbolication and safepoints 0x00000001155d8dc0 0x00000001155df1a4 0x00000001155d9de4 Stack Trace List of frames Frame == address
29. Mapping address to metadata Interpreted code - preserves BCI - simple lookup Compiled code - needs debug info by JIT - inlining complicates it
30. # {method} {0x00000001314004c8} 'mul' '(II)I' in 'com/datadog/demo1/Multi' … 0x000000011370d454: ; {other} 0x000000011370d454: 1f20 03d5 | 1f00 80f2 | 1f00 80f2 | ff43 0091 | 5301 0034 | 8a2b 42f9 | 0300 0014 | 8a2b 42f9 0x000000011370d474: f303 0c2a | b502 140b 0x000000011370d47c: ; ImmutableOopMap {} ;*goto {reexecute=1 rethrow=0 return_oop=0} ; - (reexecute) com.datadog.demo1.Multi::mul@13 (line 17) … > java -XX:+UnlockDiagnosticVMOptions -XX:+PrintAssembly -jar multi.jar
31. # {method} {0x00000001314004c8} 'mul' '(II)I' in 'com/datadog/demo1/Multi' … 0x000000011370d454: ; {other} 0x000000011370d454: 1f20 03d5 | 1f00 80f2 | 1f00 80f2 | ff43 0091 | 5301 0034 | 8a2b 42f9 | 0300 0014 | 8a2b 42f9 0x000000011370d474: f303 0c2a | b502 140b 0x000000011370d47c: ; ImmutableOopMap {} ;*goto {reexecute=1 rethrow=0 return_oop=0} ; - (reexecute) com.datadog.demo1.Multi::mul@13 (line 17) …
32. Biased toward safepoint
33. Debug info only at safepoints
34. # {method} {0x00000001314004c8} 'mul' '(II)I' in 'com/datadog/demo1/Multi' … 0x00000001130c15d4: ; {other} 0x00000001130c15d4: 1f20 03d5 | 1f00 80f2 | 1f00 80f2 0x00000001130c15e0: ;*iload_1 {reexecute=0 rethrow=0 return_oop=0} ; - com.datadog.demo1.Multi::mul@2 (line 15) 0x00000001130c15e0: ff43 0091 | 5301 0034 | 8a2b 42f9 | 0300 0014 0x00000001130c15f0: ;*goto {reexecute=0 rethrow=0 return_oop=0} ; - com.datadog.demo1.Multi::mul@13 (line 17) 0x00000001130c15f0: 8a2b 42f9 | f303 0c2a 0x00000001130c15f8: ;*iadd {reexecute=0 rethrow=0 return_oop=0} ; - com.datadog.demo1.Multi::mul@8 (line 16) … > java -XX:+UnlockDiagnosticVMOptions -XX:+DebugNonSafepoints -XX:+PrintAssembly -jar multi.jar
35. # {method} {0x00000001314004c8} 'mul' '(II)I' in 'com/datadog/demo1/Multi' … 0x00000001130c15d4: ; {other} 0x00000001130c15d4: 1f20 03d5 | 1f00 80f2 | 1f00 80f2 0x00000001130c15e0: ;*iload_1 {reexecute=0 rethrow=0 return_oop=0} ; - com.datadog.demo1.Multi::mul@2 (line 15) 0x00000001130c15e0: ff43 0091 | 5301 0034 | 8a2b 42f9 | 0300 0014 0x00000001130c15f0: ;*goto {reexecute=0 rethrow=0 return_oop=0} ; - com.datadog.demo1.Multi::mul@13 (line 17) 0x00000001130c15f0: 8a2b 42f9 | f303 0c2a 0x00000001130c15f8: ;*iadd {...} ; - com.datadog.demo1.Multi::mul@8 (line 16) …
36. Unbiased line mapping
37. -XX:+UnlockDiagnosticVMOptions -XX:+DebugNonSafepoints
38. Summary: ExecutionSample event Approximation of CPU usage Unstable relation to real CPU usage - ‘effective’ sampling period - more visible in async/reactive frameworks Can it be improved?
39. CPUTimeExecutionSample Directly correlated to CPU usage Using kernel scheduler support - timer_create - Linux only - similar approach as async-profiler [1] JEP in-progress [2] [1] https://github.com/async-profiler/async-profiler [2] https://openjdk.org/jeps/8337789
40. thread has consumed N ms raise signal for that thread walk the stack enqueue the trace MPSC Queue symbolicate frames emit events CPUTimeExecutionSample Scheduler Signal Handler JFR Thread
41. Summary: CPUTimeExecutionSample event Truthful representation of CPU usage “Serialization” queue is a bottleneck - many producers, only single consumer - dropped samples are acknowledged Linux only
42. Improving CPUTimeExecutionSample event Unwind Java stack at a safepoint [1] - removes the queue bottleneck - improves stability, maintains precision [1] https://openjdk.org/jeps/8350338
43. # {method} {0x00000001314004c8} 'mul' '(II)I' in 'com/datadog/demo1/Multi' … 0x000000011370d454: ; {other} 0x000000011370d454: 1f20 03d5 | 1f00 80f2 | 1f00 80f2 | ff43 0091 | 5301 0034 | 8a2b 42f9 | 0300 0014 | 8a2b 42f9 0x000000011370d474: f303 0c2a | b502 140b 0x000000011370d47c: ; ImmutableOopMap {} ;*goto {reexecute=1 rethrow=0 return_oop=0} ; - (reexecute) com.datadog.demo1.Multi::mul@13 (line 17) … Unwind stack at safepoint Safepoint Location
44. # {method} {0x00000001314004c8} 'mul' '(II)I' in 'com/datadog/demo1/Multi' … 0x000000011370d454: ; {other} 0x000000011370d454: 1f20 03d5 | 1f00 80f2 | 1f00 80f2 | ff43 0091 | 5301 0034 | 8a2b 42f9 | 0300 0014 | 8a2b 42f9 0x000000011370d474: f303 0c2a | b502 140b 0x000000011370d47c: ; ImmutableOopMap {} ;*goto {reexecute=1 rethrow=0 return_oop=0} ; - (reexecute) com.datadog.demo1.Multi::mul@13 (line 17) … Unwind stack at safepoint Sample (record PC) Safepoint Location
45. # {method} {0x00000001314004c8} 'mul' '(II)I' in 'com/datadog/demo1/Multi' … 0x000000011370d454: ; {other} 0x000000011370d454: 1f20 03d5 | 1f00 80f2 | 1f00 80f2 | ff43 0091 | 5301 0034 | 8a2b 42f9 | 0300 0014 | 8a2b 42f9 0x000000011370d474: f303 0c2a | b502 140b 0x000000011370d47c: ; ImmutableOopMap {} ;*goto {reexecute=1 rethrow=0 return_oop=0} ; - (reexecute) com.datadog.demo1.Multi::mul@13 (line 17) … Unwind stack at safepoint Unwind from recorded PC Safepoint Location
46. Unwind stack at safepoint Stable unwinding - cooperating with JVM - unwinding only when it is safe Preserves exact location - samples not restricted to safepoints
47. What is hogging the CPU? How come the pod is OOM-killed? Are other processes influencing me? How to correlate performance metrics to my business The Riddles
48. Where is all my, what you call it, memory? Also known as ‘Memory Profiling’ Allocated memory by code locations - usually in form of stacktraces jdk.ObjectAllocationSample jdk.ObjectAllocationInNewTLAB jdk.ObjectAllocationOutsideTLAB - built-in JFR events to capture heap allocations
49. Java Heap Allocations Very fast pointer-bump Thread Local Allocation Buffers (TLAB) - avoid contention by allocating thread-locally first - when filled-up spill to the heap - fill TLAB -> spill to heap -> rince’n’repeat - you can read more in JVM Anatomy Quark #4 [1] [1] https://shipilev.net/jvm/anatomy-quarks/4-tlab-allocation
50. How TLAB works TLAB T1 Java Heap Small TLAB T2 Large Allocation S Allocation L Occupied Free Overflow
51. TLAB spill and JFR events Java Heap Small [JFR Event] ObjectAllocationInNewTLAB Large TLAB T1 TLAB T2 Allocation S Allocation L [JFR Event] ObjectAllocationOutsideTLAB Occupied Free Overflow
52. TLAB stored in heap Java Heap Small Large TLAB T1 TLAB T2 Occupied Free Overflow
53. TLAB events are very frequent and can easily flood recording
54. A (100B) B (211B) A (100B) A (100B) C[] (411B) B (813B) D (4MB) C[] (87B) Adaptive sampler [4 samples/T] Object Allocation Samples Time period T Random Samples B (2 * 1MB) C[] (3 * 1MB) D (4 * 1MB) C[] (2 * 1MB) TLAB events (TLAB = 1MB) == 11 TLABs == 11 TLABs
55. JFR Object Allocation Sample Based on TLAB events Employs adaptive sampler - modulates emission rate to achieve the target Allows upscaling from samples - records the ‘skipped’ allocations Available since JDK 16 [1] Gory details in my blog post [2] [1] https://bugs.openjdk.org/browse/JDK-8257602 [2] https://jbachorik.github.io/posts/jfr-allocation-profiling
56. Biased on TLAB size!
57. JVMTI Allocation Sampler TLAB “Soft-max” Sampler Allocation Trigger sample Set new soft-max (exponential distribution random generator)
58. JVMTI Allocation Sampler Using soft-max to avoid bias JEP 331: Low-overhead Heap Profiling in JDK 11 [1] JVMTI only - no JFR integration as of now - immutable sampling interval - single soft-max JFR integration would be interesting [1] https://openjdk.org/jeps/331
59. What is hogging the CPU? How come the pod is OOM-killed? Are other processes influencing me? How to correlate performance metrics to my business The Riddles
60. Heap profiling What occupies memory and why “Dead or Alive” Heap-dumps jdk.OldObjectSample
61. A (100B) B (211B) A (100B) A (100B) C[] (411B) B (813B) D (4MB) C[] (87B) Time period T TLAB events (TLAB = 1MB) Liveness Tracker Instance Removed A (100B) B (211B) A (100B) A (100B) C[] (411B) B (813B) D (4MB) C[] (87B) GC
62. A (100B) B (211B) A (100B) A (100B) C[] (411B) B (813B) D (4MB) C[] (87B) Time period T TLAB events (TLAB = 1MB) Liveness Tracker Instance Removed A (100B) B (211B) A (100B) A (100B) C[] (411B) B (813B) D (4MB) C[] (87B) GC
63. OldObjectSample event Using TLAB events (kind-of) Keeps track of liveness (Optional) Reference chains to GC roots - fairly cheap alternative to heap dumps - helps answering ‘how is keeping the memory’ No upscaling to real used heap
64. Reference chains Collected at the end of chunk Must perform heap walk - stop-the world - time-bounded via config - may not get all chains due to time limit ArrayList String “Hello” String “world” byte[] byte[] Static field [GC Root] OldObjectSample Event
65. Biased on TLAB size!
66. Advancing OldObjectSample event Use non-biased sampler Speed up reference chains - ‘Parallel and incremental heap scanning’ [1] Improve data representativeness - do not favour ‘large’ samples - rather keep random samples [1] https://bugs.openjdk.org/browse/JDK-8214535
67. What is hogging the CPU? How comes the pod is OOM-killed? Are other processes influencing me? Can we pack more containers on a machine safely? The Riddles
68. Enter eBPF?!
69. eBPF is making the Linux Kernel programmable at native execution speed! https://ebpf.io/
70. eBPF runtime Courtesy of Mohammed Abboulaide
71. Courtesy of Mohammed Abboulaide
72. Courtesy of Mohammed Abboulaide
73. CPU Profiling: The eBPF Way Scheduler probe - watches the CPU time spent by thread - unwinds native user/kernel stack - unwinds runtime specific stack - JVM stack with the help of vmstructs [1] Probe is not ‘maskable’ by syscalls Probe code has limits due to eBPF [1] https://github.com/openjdk/jdk/blob/master/src/hotspot/share/runtime/vmStructs.cpp
74. Memory Profiling: The eBPF Way Does not exist as of now - at least not for JVM There is a hope - JVM has ready-to-use USDT support [1][2][3] - we can “just” probe JVMTI Allocation Sampler [1] https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/technotes/guides/vm/dtrace.html [2] https://leezhenghui.github.io/linux/2019/03/05/exploring-usdt-on-linux.html [3] https://myaut.github.io/dtrace-stap-book/app/java.html
75. provider hotspot_jvmti { probe AllocObject__sample(char*, size_t, size_t); }; Create new provider in JVM Call the probe HOTSPOT_JVMTI_ALLOCOBJECT_SAMPLE(obj->klass()->name()->as_ C_string(), allocation_size, bytes_since_allocation); https://github.com/DataDog/openjdk-jdk/commit/686b8454e1f99b7d75ceb9af6c5b68dbb49e9ffd src/hotspot/os/posix/dtrace/hotspot_jvmti. d src/hotspot/share/runtime/threadHeapSampler.cp p
76. Attach probe sudo bpftrace -p <pid> -e ' usdt:*:hotspot_jvmti:AllocObject__sample { printf("Alloc: %s (%d, %d)\n", str(arg0), arg1, arg2); }' Probe trace Class: s/Some (16, 62673) Class: s/c/i/RedBlackTree$Tree (32, 71939) Class: s/c/i/RedBlackTree$Tree (32, 55760) Class: s/c/i/TreeMap (24, 537917) https://github.com/DataDog/openjdk-jdk/commit/686b8454e1f99b7d75ceb9af6c5b68dbb49e9ffd
77. OpenTelemetry (OTel) eBPF profiler OTel (Open Telemetry) [1] - CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation) [2] incubating project OTel Profiling Signal [2] - SES1247:Continuous Profiling - the 4th Pillar of Observability, M.Hirt Continuous Profiling - the 4th Pillar of Observability OTel Profiling Agent [3] - donated to CNCF/OTel by Elastic - Datadog full-host profiler fork [4] - Multi-runtime (Go, Rust, JVM etc.) [1] https://opentelemetry.io/ [2] https://www.cncf.io/ [3] https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-ebpf-profiler [4] https://github.com/DataDog/dd-otel-host-profiler/
78. OpenTelemetry (OTel) eBPF profiler OTel (Open Telemetry) [1] - CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation) [2] incubating project OTel Profiling Signal [2] - SES1247:Continuous Profiling - the 4th Pillar of Observability, M.Hirt Continuous Profiling - the 4th Pillar of Observability OTel Profiling Agent [3] - donated to CNCF/OTel by Elastic - Datadog full-host profiler fork [4] - Multi-runtime (Go, Rust, JVM etc.) [1] https://opentelemetry.io/ [2] https://www.cncf.io/ [3] https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-ebpf-profiler [4] https://github.com/DataDog/dd-otel-host-profiler/ N JVM le behin !
79. What is hogging the CPU? How comes the pod is OOM-killed? Are other processes influencing me? How to correlate performance metrics to my business The Riddles
80. Labels everywhere!
81. Profiling data dimensions Sample value - CPU Time, Allocated memory … Originating REST API calls Distributed tracing ID Customer ID Anything else that makes sense for the user Allow slice’n’dice of profiling data Sometimes also referred to as ‘Profiling Context’
82. Quick poll: What is flamegraph? https://www.brendangregg.com/FlameGraphs/cpuflamegraphs.html
83. Profiling labels T1 10 ms S1-2 S3-6 S7-8 Aggregated stacktraces [Flamegraph] 8 samples
84. Operations (distributed tracer) T1 S1-2 S3-6 S7-8 REST /api/showAll DB select * from … UI renderForm()
85. Customers (user defined context) T1 S1-2 S3-6 S7-8 Big Customer
86. Slice’n’dice All Samples
87. Slice’n’dice REST /api/showAll
88. Slice’n’dice REST /api/showAll Big Customer +
89. Profiling labels Improved understanding, navigation and analytics Rely on user specific context Proved valuable in Datadog Java profiler [1] OTel is looking at adding labels to the eBPF profiler [2] Experimental prototypes for profiling labels in JFR [3, 4] [1] https://github.com/DataDog/java-profiler [2] https://www.elastic.co/observability-labs/blog/continuous-profiling-distributed-tracing-correlation [3] https://jbachorik.github.io/posts/seeing-in-context_1 [4] https://jbachorik.github.io/posts/different-shade-of-context
90. What is hogging the CPU? How comes the pod is OOM-killed? Are other processes influencing me? How to correlate performance metrics to my business The Riddles
91. Thank you! Jaroslav Bachorik @bachorikj https://www.linkedin.com/in/jbachorik/ https://github.com/jbachorik Resources and links Questions?