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What is real-time?
A real-time operating system (RTOS) schedules tasks to be performed according to a set of established priorities. Under "normal" conditions, tasks follow a predictable schedule of execution. The ability to respond to environmental inputs in a priority-based manner allows a real-time operating system to respond almost instantaneously to events as they occur. This makes it the ideal control system for mission-critical applications - such as medical monitoring devices, flight consoles, automated assembly lines, telecom hubs, or off-planet vehicles.
Real-time systems must perform computations according to deadlines. By definition, if a hard real-time system misses a deadline, something catastrophic happens. The system fails. The computed results are useless. In the worst-case scenario, lives are lost.
In contrast, many devices remain useful even if deadlines are missed. The universe of soft real-time applications includes devices whose purpose is entertainment or the transmission of non-critical information. Wind River offers device developers a spectrum of operating system choices, appropriate to different needs.
Why do device manufacturers choose an RTOS?
In addition to the capacity for preemptive scheduling, high reliability, and stringent performance, real-time operating systems offer additional benefits:
- Small memory footprint
- Fast boot time
- Low power consumption
- Long battery life
- Low cost
- Scalability
Any or all of these characteristics can lead a device manufacturer to choose an RTOS over a general purpose operating system (GPOS), such as Linux, for a particular project.
The Evolution of Commercial Grade VxWorks
VxWorks was created in the early 1980s, when Wind River's founders set out to scale the expertise they'd gathered in the Real-Time Systems Group at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory from large physics experiments to device control systems. They made some fundamental decisions about what a real-time embedded operating system should be and have shaped the product, and the industry, ever since.
Over more than 20 years, VxWorks has evolved through six incrementally improved releases and has been deployed in more than 350 million devices, making it the most widely used and thoroughly tested real-time operating system available today.
Three key factors have driven VxWorks' domination of the RTOS market:
- It has evolved in tandem with powerful development tools that make it easy and efficient to use
- It has kept pace with advances in hardware platforms
- It has met the evolving needs of Wind River customers across a broad range of industries
The exponentially increasing complexity of device software today means two things for device manufacturers. First, one monolithic operating system cannot meet all needs. Second, an operating system alone is only one element of a successful device software solution.
Wind River's Commercial Grade VxWorks complements state-of-the-art RTOS technology with integrated, supported, standards-based development and run-time platforms tailored to the needs of specific vertical markets.
Our secure, customizable, COTS solutions shorten time-to-productivity, time-to-innovation, time-to-market, and time-to-profit. Great engineering, extensive partnerships, world-class support, and the market-leading DSO strategy combine to make VxWorks both development-ready and commercial-grade.
The Challenges of Real-Time Development
Balancing functionality, performance, and footprint
Just because the native capability is present in the OS doesn't mean a development team knows how to strike the right balance among desired characteristics. Negotiating the tradeoffs takes time and requires skill.
Determinism
A deterministic system is built from deterministic parts. While this can assure reliability, it also creates additional challenges in how companies architect device software.
Custom hardware
Many devices that require real-time performance are based on custom hardware designs. Optimizing these for device development can add months to the development process.
Security
The demand for secure devices continues to escalate, requiring additional levels of complex functionality to meet consumer expectations and government mandates.
Interoperability and integration
Today's increasingly complex devices require functionality beyond the operating system. Integrating and assuring the interoperability of proprietary, in-house, open-source, and third-party technologies can slow or break the development process.
Support for open standards
At present, RTOS technology is proprietary, yet many applications require or would profit from leveraging open standards. Integration, co-residence, and communication issues between open standards-based and proprietary operating systems can be difficult and time-consuming to resolve.
Meeting certifications
The work of meeting government safety and security considerations is immense, beyond reach of most technology companies. Beyond the complexity of the engineering involved is the cost of certification, estimated at anywhere from $50 (DO-178B) to $1,000 (Common Criteria/EALx) per line of code, depending on the certification.
Migration
While companies want to embrace the newest and best technologies, upgrades and migration can be expensive. The monetary cost of migrating to an entirely new operating system is estimated at $3 per line of code. Additional migration costs include slowed or lost productivity and resources spent training developers.
