Liberica Native Image Kit (NIK)

Main article: Open Source

2021: Liberica Native Image Kit (NIK) release

On April 27, 2021, BellSoft {hide } BellSoft {/hide} announced the release of the open source product Liberica Native Image Kit (NIK). It is a universal compiler based on the GrailVM Community Edition for multilingual programming and quick start of applications. It optimizes RAM, provides easy data exchange and proper speed. The development teams have gained an experimental tool to speed up the launch of Java-based software and microservices that maximizes IT value to the business while reducing costs. Thanks to the implementation of the native image on the lightweight Alpine Linux OS with the musl library, BellSoft provides application launch 10 times faster than with optimization with the help of a virtual machine.

Liberica Native Image Kit (NIK)

According to the company, Liberica NIK provides all the capabilities of native image technology and reduces costs when deploying microservices and cloud solutions that require fast launch and low resource consumption. The Liberica NIK package includes Liberica VM, language plugins and a tool for creating a native image based on the GraalVM CE project, the contributor of which is BellSoft .

The Liberica NIK compiler with support for different programming languages ​ ​ is designed to create native distributions based on applications. It provides seamless implementation of multilingual projects, such as microservices, allowing Java developers to use libraries and frameworks written in other languages, run them in the same program and share data without losing performance. Like the basic GraalVM Native Image, most Liberica NIK assemblies support a wide range of languages: Java, JavaScript, LLVM, Python, Ruby, R, and WebAssembly.

Thanks to compatibility with various platforms and configurations of Linux, Windows and Mac OS, the product from BellSoft optimizes resource consumption and application size. Liberica NIK converts Java bytecode into platform-dependent binary code. As a result, the developer receives a pre-compiled executable file (AOT), which runs autonomously and quickly. The build on the lightweight Alpine Linux OS showed a decent result when testing memory measurements and the launch speed of microservice application configurations. The project in the native image of Liberica NIK on Alpine Linux with the musl library consumed half the memory and started in 0.1 seconds, which is more than 10 times faster than with JVM optimization.

The optimal file size, minimum memory requirements and, to the processor as well as a quick start, make the native images created by Liberica NIK suitable for containerization. So distributions for assembling Docker containers in different languages ​ ​ and compiling the source files of GraalVM can be prepared with Liberica NIK in just a couple of clicks. mouse

The Liberica NIK utility is based on Liberica JDK, Java runtime, version 11.0.10 and GraalVM CE 21.0. It supports a range of platforms: Linux x86_64 (glibc), Linux Alpine x86_64 (musl), Linux AArch64 (glibc), Linux Alpine AArch64 (musl), Mac OS, Windows x86_64.