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Oracle makes Java discovery service free to all

Oracle’s Java Management Service can shine a light on which versions of Java you’re running, what apps are running on them, and which installs are outdated.

Oracle is making the discovery capabilities in its cloud-hosted Java Management Service available free to all comers. Previously the capability was available only to users with an Oracle Java SE (Standard Edition) subscription or to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure users.

Java Management Service is a native Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) service that monitors Java deployments on instances running in OCI or in customer data centers. Its discovery capability allows users to identify Java runtime installations and their versions. The capability also tracks which applications use which Java runtimes.

Java Management Service's basic discovery features will be available free to all users, while its more advanced capabilities, such as the ability to install and remove Java runtimes, will be reserved for Java SE subscribers and OCI customers.

Oracle will not include Java Management Service capabilities under development, such as the ability to identify crypto usage or third-party library use. Oracle also is developing customisable installations of Java Management Service.

Users of the discovery service will be required to pay underlying OCI data monitoring costs, described as nominal by Oracle and often covered by OCI new account incentives.

Because Java Management Service is an OCI service and not part of the Java runtime, it has a faster release cadence, as many cloud services do. New features at least theoretically should appear more frequently in Java Management Service than in Java.