Patent ID: 7434214

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of improving performance in a Java computer application program executable by a Java virtual machine (JVM), comprising the steps of: obtaining information associated with garbage collection; and deducing changes in performance that will result from modifying the Java computer application program; wherein a cost of garbage collection to program performance of a modified version of the Java computer application program is estimated by the computer-implemented method using a duration of an average garbage collection event and a frequency of occurrence of particular garbage collection events; wherein the duration depends on an amount of garbage that must be cleaned up; an algorithm used to do collecting or copying; a heap compaction; a cost of reconciling object references that are moved; and a number of Java-based finalizers that must be executed; wherein the frequency depends on a rate of object creation; heap fragmentation; size of the heap; and a garbage collection policy; wherein the Java computer application program is changed by reducing memory from a footprint of the Java computer application program, wherein given an amount of memory to be reduced from the footprint (m), a total duration for a run (d), and how much of the run is spent in garbage collection (g), a number of additional transactions that can be computed during the run is determined according to: y =function ( m,t,g,d,f ), where t is current computed throughput of the Java computer application program in transactions/second, f is average memory footprint of the Java computer application program during duration d, and y is the number of additional transactions gained as a result of reducing the memory footprint of the Java computer application program to (f−m) during the total duration d.