diff --git a/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/bootstrap/Bootstrap.java b/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/bootstrap/Bootstrap.java
index 8da3d6b658c..022f7a3c4de 100644
--- a/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/bootstrap/Bootstrap.java
+++ b/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/bootstrap/Bootstrap.java
@@ -271,9 +271,6 @@ final class Bootstrap {
                 closeSystOut();
             }
 
-            // fail if using broken version
-            JVMCheck.check();
-
             // fail if somebody replaced the lucene jars
             checkLucene();
 
diff --git a/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/bootstrap/JVMCheck.java b/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/bootstrap/JVMCheck.java
deleted file mode 100644
index 8afebbce82d..00000000000
--- a/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/bootstrap/JVMCheck.java
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,88 +0,0 @@
-/*
- * Licensed to Elasticsearch under one or more contributor
- * license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with
- * this work for additional information regarding copyright
- * ownership. Elasticsearch licenses this file to you under
- * the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may
- * not use this file except in compliance with the License.
- * You may obtain a copy of the License at
- *
- *    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
- *
- * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
- * software distributed under the License is distributed on an
- * "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
- * KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
- * specific language governing permissions and limitations
- * under the License.
- */
-
-package org.elasticsearch.bootstrap;
-
-import org.apache.lucene.util.Constants;
-import org.elasticsearch.common.logging.Loggers;
-import org.elasticsearch.monitor.jvm.JvmInfo;
-
-import java.lang.management.ManagementFactory;
-import java.util.Collections;
-import java.util.HashMap;
-import java.util.Map;
-import java.util.Optional;
-
-/** Checks that the JVM is ok and won't cause index corruption */
-final class JVMCheck {
-
-    /** no instantiation */
-    private JVMCheck() {}
-
-    /**
-     * System property which if set causes us to bypass the check completely (but issues a warning in doing so)
-     */
-    static final String JVM_BYPASS = "es.bypass.vm.check";
-
-    /**
-     * Checks that the current JVM is "ok". This means it doesn't have severe bugs that cause data corruption.
-     */
-    static void check() {
-        if (Boolean.parseBoolean(System.getProperty(JVM_BYPASS))) {
-            Loggers.getLogger(JVMCheck.class).warn("bypassing jvm version check for version [{}], this can result in data corruption!", fullVersion());
-        } else if ("IBM Corporation".equals(Constants.JVM_VENDOR)) {
-            // currently some old JVM versions from IBM will easily result in index corruption.
-            // 2.8+ seems ok for ES from testing.
-            float version = Float.POSITIVE_INFINITY;
-            try {
-                version = Float.parseFloat(Constants.JVM_VERSION);
-            } catch (NumberFormatException ignored) {
-                // this is just a simple best-effort to detect old runtimes,
-                // if we cannot parse it, we don't fail.
-            }
-            if (version < 2.8f) {
-                StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
-                sb.append("IBM J9 runtimes < 2.8 suffer from several bugs which can cause data corruption.");
-                sb.append(System.lineSeparator());
-                sb.append("Your version: " + fullVersion());
-                sb.append(System.lineSeparator());
-                sb.append("Please upgrade the JVM to a recent IBM JDK");
-                throw new RuntimeException(sb.toString());
-            }
-        }
-    }
-
-    /**
-     * Returns java + jvm version, looks like this:
-     * {@code Oracle Corporation 1.8.0_45 [Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM 25.45-b02]}
-     */
-    static String fullVersion() {
-        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
-        sb.append(Constants.JAVA_VENDOR);
-        sb.append(" ");
-        sb.append(Constants.JAVA_VERSION);
-        sb.append(" [");
-        sb.append(Constants.JVM_NAME);
-        sb.append(" ");
-        sb.append(Constants.JVM_VERSION);
-        sb.append("]");
-        return sb.toString();
-    }
-
-}