I would like to solicit your inputs on the basic doubt i have on java heap space.

I would like to know the object allocated or the percentage of heap space or overall java memory space acquired by Java runtime itself.

Same question applies to the java servlet or Java EE containers like Tomcat or any other application servers.

I checked some basic heap dumps for tomcat when i run a bare minimal JSP page . I can see it already has taken 17 MB where i see some objects allocated for catalina class loader classes. I did the analysis using Eclipse Memory analyzer tool.

Same i see when i run standalone Java program which has some char[] loaded by the classloaders.

May be more objects will be allocated when i run more complex scenarios.

Can i somehow influence this basic loading of java runtime classes or object allocations using some VM arguments or by something else?