JDK 17

JDK 17
Name	Java Development Kit 17
Developer	Oracle Corporation
Released	2021-09-14
Latest release	Release 17 (LTS)
Written in	Java, C, C++
Operating system	Cross-platform
License	Oracle Technology Network License Agreement for Oracle Java SE

JDK 17

JDK 17 is a long-term support release of the Java Platform, Standard Edition developed by Oracle Corporation. It succeeds Java SE 11 and follows the six-month cadence established after Java SE 9; the release consolidated work from multiple projects and proposals, and influenced adoption across enterprises such as Amazon Web Services, Red Hat, Microsoft, IBM, and Google. Major downstream vendors and communities including Eclipse Foundation, AdoptOpenJDK, and OpenJDK engaged in testing and packaging for diverse deployments across Amazon Linux, Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Windows Server, and macOS.

Overview

JDK 17 introduced a collection of completed Java Enhancement Proposals developed within the OpenJDK community and curated by Oracle engineers and contributors from firms like Azul Systems, SAP SE, BellSoft and Tencent. The release is designated as a Long-Term Support (LTS) milestone, intended for production users seeking multi-year stability similar to previous LTS releases such as Java SE 8 and Java SE 11. JDK 17 integrates platform improvements, performance refinements, and language-level features incubated or previewed in prior releases led by project teams associated with Project Amber, Project Valhalla, Project Panama, and Project Loom.

New Features and Enhancements

JDK 17 finalizes several major additions and refinements from OpenJDK proposals and enhancement projects. Notable completions include the removal of the experimental Applets and legacy components deprecated over earlier cycles, the introduction of sealed type support refined under Project Amber proposals, and the incorporation of foreign function and memory improvements that advance objectives championed by participants from Oracle Labs and University of Cambridge research collaborations. Language and VM improvements influenced by academic groups such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and University of California, Berkeley are reflected in performance work and garbage-collector enhancements aligning with research from Google Research and industrial teams at Microsoft Research. Security-focused updates incorporated cryptographic algorithm modernization and hardening maintained in coordination with standards organizations like the Internet Engineering Task Force and contributors at National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Release History and Support

JDK 17's GA release date followed the six-month cadence introduced after the JDK 9 timeframe, with the Oracle-led schedule announced alongside community plans at conferences such as JavaOne, Oracle Code One, and Devoxx. The LTS designation places JDK 17 in a support lifecycle adopted by vendors including Red Hat, IBM, and Amazon Corretto, which coordinate patches and backports for enterprise support contracts and compliance with standards bodies such as the Open Group. Long-term maintenance and updates are tracked in coordination with repositories maintained by OpenJDK and mirror networks such as those used by GitHub and GitLab hosting services.

Compatibility and Platform Support

Platform compatibility for JDK 17 spans architectures and operating systems supported by major cloud providers and platform vendors: Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, and on-premises environments running distributions from Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Ubuntu, Debian, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. Toolchains and continuous-integration systems like Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, and Travis CI added runners and containers enabling builds against the JDK 17 runtime and toolchain. Hardware and architecture targets include x86-64 implementations from Intel and AMD, as well as ARM-based servers and devices from Apple (M1 family) and vendors such as Ampere Computing and NVIDIA where platform ports were validated by communities led by companies like Canonical and Homebrew.

Tooling and Development Changes

Development tooling adapted for JDK 17 encompassed IDE updates and build tool integrations: major IDE vendors and projects such as Eclipse (software), IntelliJ IDEA, NetBeans, and Visual Studio Code released support updates for language features and runtime diagnostics. Build systems and dependency managers including Maven (software), Gradle, and Ant (software) published compatibility guidance and plugin updates. Profiling and observability tool maintainers like YourKit, JProfiler, Prometheus, and Grafana integrated with JDK 17's diagnostics interfaces and flight recorder enhancements, while testing frameworks such as JUnit, TestNG, and Mockito updated to address language changes and module-path behaviors influenced by the JPMS initiative.

Adoption and Impact on Ecosystem

The LTS status encouraged migration efforts across enterprises, cloud providers, and open-source projects such as Apache Software Foundation projects like Apache Kafka, Apache Tomcat, and Apache Maven. Major vendors including Oracle Corporation, Red Hat, IBM, Amazon Web Services, and Azul Systems published support timelines and migration guides to assist users of legacy LTS releases like Java SE 8 and Java SE 11. The release affected downstream ecosystems including container orchestration with Kubernetes, microservices frameworks like Spring Framework, Micronaut, and Quarkus, and build pipelines used by organizations such as Netflix, LinkedIn, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, and Spotify. Academic and industry research into language and VM evolution continued at institutions and labs such as ETH Zurich, Carnegie Mellon University, Facebook AI Research, and Bell Labs, informing subsequent proposals and vendor roadmaps.

Category:Java (programming language) releases