Java Cold Starts in Serverless: Performance Optimization with Modern Frameworks

Explore the reality of Java cold starts in AWS Lambda and serverless computing through this 38-minute technical talk from Eclipse Foundation. Discover why Java itself starts in milliseconds while certain frameworks and libraries cause slowdowns. Learn about cold start mechanics, their impact on application responsiveness and cloud costs, and explore optimization strategies using modern Jakarta EE frameworks like Quarkus and Piranha Cloud. Examine practical demonstrations comparing framework performance, startup times, and optimization techniques including JVM tuning, custom runtime implementation, and GraalVM native binary compilation. Through live demonstrations, understand how Jakarta EE-based AWS Lambda functions can achieve minimal cold start times while considering the tradeoffs and cost implications of various optimization approaches.