Choosing the right Java version

Stambia DI Software products are developed with Java and therefore need a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) to run.

Java virtual machine is distributed by several vendors in many versions, therefore you must choose the appropriate Java version depending on your technical needs and requirements.

In this article we are giving some advice to help choosing the appropriate Java version for your Stambia DI environment.

 

This article is a Work in Progress!

If you have any doubt do not hesitate to contact us.

 

About Java Version

Supported Java distributions vendors

Stambia DI officially supports Oracle and OpenJDK Java versions.

Some installations are known to work and run also with IBM Java (AIX servers).

Stambia DI can work with these so feel free to use them and inform us in case of issues.

 

Supported Java versions

You can find below an overview of supported Java versions

 

Stambia DI Designer

Product version	Supported Java version
Stambia DI Designer 2020 (S20.0.0) and higher	Java 8 or Java 11
Stambia DI Designer S17, S18, S19	Java 6, Java 7, Java 8

 

Stambia DI Runtime

Product version	Supported Java version
Stambia DI Runtime 2020 (S20.0.0) or higher	Java 8 or Java 11
Stambia DI Runtime S17	Java 6, Java 7, Java 8

 

Stambia DI Production Analytics

Product version	Supported Java version
Stambia DI Production Analytics 3	Java 8
Stambia DI Production Analytics 2	Java 7, Java 8

 

Good practices & information

When choosing the right Java version, here are some good practices to have in mind:

• Make sure your QA environment has the same exact Java version as your target Production environment
• Upgrade your JVM with care: test your Stambia processes before deploying the new Java version, avoid Java auto-updates
• You can easily install standalone Java versions to avoid dependency with other applications and auto-updates.

 

Examples of technical requirements

About the technical requirements which can help you to choose the proper Java versions, here are some of them:

• Make sure to choose a Java version supported by the Stambia DI Software version you are using
• If you plan to use ODBC datasources, make sure that the JVM architecture (32 bits / 64 bits) matches the ODBC driver architecture.
• SSL connections to some SFTP/SSH/HTTPS servers may require Java Security algorithms => make sure the Java version supports them.
• Some JDBC drivers require minimum Java versions. See your JDBC vendor's documentation (Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, etc...)

 

If the requirements lead to several Java versions, remember that you can setup several Runtimes with different Java versions!

 

Checking the Java version currently used by Stambia DI

When you want to know which Java version is currently used by Stambia DI, you can refer to the following procedures.

Depending on Stambia DI Software, the procedure differs.

 

Java version used by Stambia DI Designer

To get the Java version used by Stambia DI Designer, proceed as follow:

1. Select the "Help" / "About Stambia Designer" menu
2. Click the "Installation Details" button
3. Go to the "Configuration" tab and look for the line starting with "java.home" and "java.version"

 

Java version used by Stambia DI Runtime

Method 1

1. Execute a Stambia Process which executes the following Rhino Scripting Process action:
   __ctx__.publishVariable("/JAVA_VERSION", java.lang.System.getProperty("java.version"));
   __ctx__.publishVariable("/JAVA_HOME", java.lang.System.getProperty("java.home"));
2. Consult the result in the Session's Variables view

 

Method 2

1. Connect the Designer to the Runtime
2. From the "Runtime" view, click the "Open" button
3. Select the "Virtual Machine" tab and consult the information, included the additional links at the bottom

 

Configuring Stambia DI for a specific standalone Java installation

It is a good idea to configure Stambia DI for a specific standalone Java installation: it ensures you keep control on the JVM used by Stambia DI, for example no impact when the Operating System silently does a Java upgrade...

To perform this, you proceed as follow:

1. Download a standalone Java archive (usually available as a .tar.gz archive)
2. Uncompress it to your preferred installation directory, for example: /home/stambia/java/jre1.8.0_151
3. Configure the Designer to use this Java installation, in stambia.ini :
   -vm
   /home/stambia/java/jre1.8.0_151
   -vmargs
   [...]
4. Configure the Runtime to use this Java installation, using the STAMBIA_JAVA_HOME environment variable:
   export STAMBIA_JAVA_HOME=/home/stambia/java/jre1.8.0_151