Sharing of classes for modular programs in a multi-tenant environment

A method comprising:

• for each of a plurality of different tenants configured to concurrently execute in a virtual environment, constructing in a memory of a processing system a respective class loader graph comprising a plurality of nodes, each node representing a respective class loader request specified by a module of the tenant;
• for each respective class loader graph:
• identifying unique types of edges between nodes that affect class loading, wherein each edge extends from a respective first node to a respective second node and indicates a dependency of the class loader request represented by the first node on the class loader request represented by the second node;
• traversing the edges in the class loader graph in accordance with data associated with each node;
• and based on traversing the edges of the class loader graph, assigning a unique dependency identifier to each class loader request represented by a corresponding node, wherein the respective unique dependency identifier assigned to a class loader request that is dependent on at least one other class loader request is based, at least in part, on a respective type of at least one edge extending from the first node representing the class loader request to the second node representing the other class loader request;
• identifying, in at least two of the plurality of tenants, class loader requests that are assigned the same unique dependency identifier;
• responsive to identifying the class loader requests to which the same unique dependency identifier are assigned, assigning, using a processor, a shared class loader to each of the class loader requests;
• and
• configuring each respective class loader request to which the same unique dependency identifier is assigned to call the shared class loader to load at least one class required by the respective tenant.