Newcastle City Council has successfully implemented Azul Platform Core as part of a drive to address critical security vulnerabilities in its Java-based applications. The move, involving an OpenJDK-based alternative to Oracle Java, comes after an audit revealed extensive IT security vulnerabilities in its Oracle JDK 8 setup.

In 2019, Oracle changed how it licensed and priced licensing and support for Java 8 and, as a result, the city council lost access to free quarterly security patches. Following this change, the local authority’s annual security audits found that the Java runtime (JDK) accounted for more than 80% of the organisation’s IT security vulnerabilities.

Newcastle City Council considered several options for improving the security of their Java applications. At one point they even thought about migrating away from Java completely. However, it was decided this would be too expensive and time consuming and would result in an unacceptable amount of downtime. In the end, the council turned to Azul Platform Core, an OpenJDK-based alternative to Oracle Java.

Azul supplied a one-for-one equivalent to a commercial support subscription from Oracle, including Critical Patch Updates (CPUs) that allowed IT to immediately deploy security fixes in production. Because Azul supports multiple Java versions and platforms – including Java 6 and 7 – the local authority could continue to safely use its older versions of Java without needing to upgrade. This transition also fortified the security of its Java environment across 5,000 desktops, and ensured that its systems remained robust, efficient and compliant with the U.K.’s Public Services Network (PSN) requirements.

‘Through our strategic partnership with Azul, we significantly reduced our security risk level with our Java applications and Java-based infrastructure, which certainly helps me sleep better at night,’ said Jenny Nelson, the council’s head of ICT & Digital. ‘In addition, the benefits of switching to Azul Platform Core as our JVM are clear. Our Java estate is now consistent, standardised, easier to maintain, and has brought a level of simplicity that’s a huge benefit to our organisation.’

The council rolled out Azul Platform Core to over 1,000 employees with no impact on performance and no complaints from service users. The rollout achieved the council’s business objective: a fully supported and secure Java application estate.

‘We are proud to support Newcastle City Council in its mission to secure critical municipal services by helping to eliminate over 80% of [Newcastle City Council’s] IT security risks,’ said James Johnston, vice president of EMEA at Azul. ‘The council’s successful implementation of Azul Platform Core is a testament to our unwavering commitment to help customers maintain the integrity and performance of their critical Java applications, while advancing their overall security posture and without impacting service levels or performance.’

This article was sponsored by Azul.