Java – spring MVC on gae: slow load time

I recently deployed a spring MVC application to Google application engine. The initial loading time is about 7 seconds After loading the application, the application responds quickly However, if the application is idle for more than 1 minute (without any traffic), the application needs to be reloaded by gae again, which also takes about 7 seconds This is not acceptable for PRD level applications (the application is empty - I don't even use JPA, SiteMesh, spring security, etc. it just loads a JSP page with some text.)

The only "best practice" to fix the "load time" I've seen so far is to set up a cron job that can hit the web address every minute, so as to keep the application "loaded" Obviously, this is a terrible solution

So here's a question: is there any "best practice" for spring's "responsiveness" on gae? As Google and spring are working to develop better integration between the two, is there any news / progress on this issue? I can't find anything specific. That's why I'm asking here

Topic discussion: http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine-java/browse_thread/thread/80d014fd5abd526f

UPDATE

There is a "ticket" to create reserved instances, and the "heating" logic: http://code.google.com/p/googleappengine/issues/detail?id=2456

Solution

From SDK 1.4 Starting with 0, you can use warm requests to avoid this delay The warm - up request loads the application code into the new instance before any real - time request reaches the instance