An Architect’s Guide to 100GB+ Heaps in the Era of Agency
In the “Chat Phase” of AI, we could afford a few seconds of lag while a model hallucinated a response. But as we transition into the Integration Renaissance — an era defined by autonomous agents that must Plan -> Execute -> Reflect — latency is no longer just a performance metric; it is a governance failure.
When your autonomous agent mesh is responsible for settling a €5M intercompany invoice or triggering a supply chain move, a multi-second “Stop-the-World” (STW) garbage collection (GC) pause doesn’t just slow down the application; it breaks the deterministic orchestration required for enterprise trust. For an integrator operating on modern Java virtual machines (JVMs), the challenge is clear: how do we manage mountains of data without the latency spikes that torpedo agentic workflows? The answer lies in the current triumvirate of advanced OpenJDK garbage collectors: G1, Shenandoah, and ZGC.