Generational Concurrent GC policy

The heap is divided into two generational areas: nursery and tenured. The nursery space is where all new objects are allocated. The tenured space contains older objects that persist beyond a few collections. The nursery is collected often. The tenured space is collected less frequently using the Optimal Average Pause policy. Objects that survive a certain number of collections (called the tenure age) are promoted to the tenured space.

For a more detailed description of Generation Concurrent, refer to IBM Java 5 Diagnostics Guide.