Get ready to lock and load through this quick overview of some of the newest most innovative, tools around. Source: http://www.takipiblog.com/7-new-tools-java-developers-should-know/

1. 7

2. LaunchedlastSeptember,jclarityisnowofferingtwoproductsaroundJavaperformance: IlluminateandCensum.Illuminateisaperformancemonitoringtool,whileCensumisanapplicationfocusedongarbagecollectionlogsanalysis.Morethanjustcollectingdataorvisualizingit, bothtoolsprovideactionableinsightstosolvetheissuestheydetect.
“Whatwewanttodoistomovetheproblemfromdatacollectiontodataanalysisandinsight”
Co-FounderBenEvans.

3. Key features
•Bottleneck detection (Disk I/O, Garbage Collection, Deadlocks, and more).
•Action plan –Recommendations to solve the problem, such as “The application needs to increase the number of active threads”.
•Explanation –Defining the problem in general and the common causes for it, for example “A high percentage of time spent paused in GC may mean that the heap has been under-sized”.
What’s unique about it
Offers the next step after monitoring and identifying your performance problems – actionable insights to solve issues on the spot.
Behindthe curtain
LondonbasedJClaritywasfoundedbyMartijnVerburg,KirkPepperdinandBenEvans,allarewellknownJavaperformanceveterans.

4. Javadevelopersarebeingkeptinthedarkinawaywhenimportinglibrariesfrom“anonymous” repositories.Bintrayaddsafacetothecodeandactually,servesasasocialplatformfordeveloperstoshareopen-sourcepackages(DidsomeonesayGitHubforbinaries? LoginwithGitHubforthefullinceptioneffecttokickin).Ithasover85,000packagesin18,000repositories,whileshowcasingpopularrepositoriesandnewreleases.

5. Key features
•Upload your binaries for the world to see, get feedback and interact with other developers.
•Download libraries with Gradle/ Maven / Yum / Apt, or just directly.
•Manage release notes and documentation.
•REST API –Search / Retrieve binaries and automate distribution.
What’s unique about it
Bintray’sbasic functionality is similar to Maven Central. However, it adds a social layer and offers an easy process to upload files to a CDN.
Behindthe curtain
BintrayisdevelopedbyJFrog,basedinIsraelandCalifornia.ItwasmadepublicAprillastyearandwonDuke’schoiceawardatthelastJavaOneconference. JFrogisalsothecompanybehindArtifactory.WhichisalsohostedonBintray.Ofcourse.

6. Ahostedserviceformonitoringandmanagingcloudapplications, Libratocancreatecustomdashboardsinsecondswithoutaneedtosetupordeployanysoftware.Oh,anditjustlooksandfeelssobutterysmoothcomparedtootherdashboards.
“Datais only as valuable as the actionable insights you can surface from it”
SaysJoeRuscio,Co-Founder&CTO.

7. Key features
•Datacollection:IntegrationwithHeroku, AWS,tensofcollectionagents(EvenNest) andpurelanguagebindingswithJava, Clojureandothers.
•Customreports:Metrics&alertsthroughemail,HipChat,Campfire,andjustHTTPPOSTrequeststointegratewithanythingyoucanthinkof.
•Datavisualization:Beautifulgraphswithannotations,correlations,sharingandembeddingoptions.
•Alerts:Automaticnotificationswhenmetricscrosscertainthresholds.
What’s unique about it
It would be hard to find anything that Librato doesn’t know how to talk with and help make sense of its data.
Behindthe curtain
BasedinSanFrancisco,LibratowasfoundedbyFredvandenBosch,JoeRuscio,MikeHeffnerandDanStodin.

8. Takipiwasbuiltwithasimpleobjectiveinmind: Tellingdevelopersexactlywhenandwhyproductioncodebreaks.Wheneveranewexceptionisthrownoralogerroroccurs–Takipicapturesitandshowsyouthevariablestatewhichcausedit,acrossmethodsandmachines.Takipiwilloverlaythisovertheactualcodewhichexecutedatthemomentoferror–soyoucananalyzetheexceptionasifyouweretherewhenithappened.

9. Key features
•Detect –Caught/uncaught exceptions, Http and logged errors.
•Prioritize –How often errors happen across your cluster, if they involve new or modified code, and whether that rate is increasing.
•Analyze –See the actual code and variable state, even across different machines and applications.
What’s unique about it
God mode in production code. Shows you the exact code and variable state at the moment of error, as if you were there when it happened.
Behindthe curtain
Psst,it’sus.Takipiwasfoundedin2012andbasedinSanFranciscoandTelAviv. Eachexceptiontypeanderrorhasauniquemonsterthatrepresentsit.

10. Elasticsearchhasbeenaroundforawhile,butElasticsearch1.0.0wasreleasedjustrecentlyinFebruary.It’sanopen-sourceprojectbuiltontopofApacheLuceneandhostedonGitHubwithover200contributors.Youcancheckoutthecoderighthere.ThemainpromiseElasticsearchprovidesisaneasytousescalabledistributedRESTfulsearch.

11. Key features
•Nearreal-timedocumentstorewhereeachfieldisindexedandsearchable.
•Distributedsearchwithanarchitecturebuilttoscalefromsmalltolargeapplications.
•ARESTfulandanativeJavaAPIamongothers.ItalsohasalibraryforHadoop.
•Worksoutoftheboxanddoesn’tnecessarilyrequiredeepunderstandingofsearch,itcanalsobeschemafreesoyoucanstartrealfast.
What’s unique about it
Like it says on the tin, it’s elastic. Built with flexibility and ease of use in mind, provides an easy place to start and to scale without compromising on hardcore features and customization options.
Behindthe curtain
ElasticsearchwasfoundedbyShayBanonbackin2010andjustrecentlyraised$70Minfunding.BeforefoundingitBanonrantheCompassopen-sourceprojectandisnowarenownedsearchexpert.Hismotivationtogetintosearch? Anapplicationhebuiltforhiswifetostoreandretrieveherfavoriterecipes.

12. Back to pure Java, Spark is aSinatrainspired micro web framework for quickly creating web applications. It wasrewritten last month to support Java 8 and lambdas, Spark is open-source and its code is available on GitHubrighthere. It’s being developed by Per Wendeland a small number of contributors over the last few years in a mission to support rapid creation of web applications with minimal effort.

13. Key features
•Quickandsimplesetupforyourfirstdeployment.
•Intuitiveroutematcher.
•AtemplateenginetocreatereusablecomponentsthatsupportsFreemarker, ApacheVelocityandMustache.
•StandaloneSparkrunsonJettybutcanalsorunonTomcat.
What’s unique about it
A picture is worth a 1000 words, but a screenshot would be more straightforward. Check it out.
Behindthe curtain
PerWendelistheSwedenbasedfounderofSpark,workingonSparkwithover20contributors.CheckoutthediscussiongroupandlearnmoreaboutSpark,howyoucancontributeandsolveissues.

14. Going deeper in the JVM, the Garbage Collector scans for objects that are no longer being used. However, sometimes developers will still hold references to objects in memory they no longer use. This is where memory leaks happen, and where Plumbrcomes in. It detects and reports if the application has memory leakage issues and provides actionable information to fix it.

15. Key features
•Live memory leak detection and alerts.
•A report with time, size, velocity (MB/h) and significance of the leak.
•The location of the memory leak in your code.
What’s unique about it
Quick and to the point, gathering insights from your code and telling you what you need to fix.
Behindthe curtain
BasedinEstonia,PlumbrwasfoundedbyPriitPotter,IvoMägi,NikitaSalnikov- TarnovskiandVladimirŠor.JoiningforcesinaseasonedJavateam,mostlyknownas“theguyswhohelpprojectsthatarestuck”.Makessense.