Wind River Commercial Grade VxWorks: The Technology

VxWorks Technology - VxWorks Services - VxWorks Support & Training - VxWorks Partner Ecosystem

The Standard in Secure Real-Time Computing
Different industries and markets have different security concerns and even different ideas about what security means. To the consumer, privacy and the security of personal information are major concerns. To an automotive manufacturer, security means the absolute reliability of under-the-hood systems. In the industrial automation sector, a security breach of the control system could put public water supplies or civic air quality in jeopardy. For large telecom companies, high availability and fast recovery are security issues. In military and national security contexts, privacy, data and network security, availability, intrusion, predictability, and performance are all top-level concerns.

Through VxWorks, our commercial-grade RTOS, Wind River offers device manufacturers a range of technology solutions to meet every security concern, while delivering the stringent real-time performance that has made VxWorks the OS of choice for more than 350 billion devices, deployed in every industry, around the world. From the level of understood and mitigated risk acceptable to most customers to the certified technologies demanded by mission-critical applications, we offer perfected, tested, supported solutions for the challenges of developing secure devices.

Device Specific Configuration

Configuration One: Self-Contained
Suitable for closed, validated systems. Features include:

• Real-time process partitioning, protecting applications from other applications, and protecting the kernel from applications
• Error management
• Test and diagnostics to allow dynamic debugging and post-deployment modifications
• Industry-leading development suite for code compiling, analysis, editing, and debugging

Configuration Two: Networked
To our basic functionality, this level adds heightened security for more widely networked devices, where dynamic downloads and multiple programmers increase quality and availability concerns. Features include:

• Validated solutions to secure resource availability
• Test and diagnostics to allow dynamic debugging and post-deployment modifications
• IPsec and IKE
• SNMP
• Wireless LAN driver and security protocols
• Firewall

Configuration Three: Safety Critical
Suitable for the highest levels of safety and security requirements, as mandated by law:

• Platform for Safety Critical ARINC 653
  • ARINC 653-1 conformance
  • DO-178B certification evidence
• Platform for Safety Critical DO-178B
• XML Configuration Tool Suite for IMA implementations
• Support for Common Criteria requirements
• POSIX Real-Time Profile PSE52 and PSE54 conformance by spring 2006

Fast Response to US CERT Security Alerts
Wind River constantly monitors advisories issued by the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US CERT http://www.us-cert.gov/) to determine if our technologies are affected. For relevant security threats, we react quickly to create patches, post these on our support side, and promptly notify customers of their availability, minimizing the window of risk for our customers and their devices.

Predictable, reliable product delivery
Clear, reliable roadmaps allow VxWorks customers to anticipate upgrades, even to request product enhancements in a systematic and reliable way. Annual spring and fall updates offer new capabilities and new hardware support. Clear and comprehensive documentation makes it easy for customers to decide which innovations to implement and tells them how.

Ease of migration
The backward compatibility of VxWorks 6 with the widely adopted VxWorks 5.5 makes moving to a new, improved operating system easier and less expensive than it has ever been. Successful migration of code requires only that developers recompile it. Projects migrate as easily as code, enabling customers to preserve the value of their intellectual property even as they upgrade their technology platform.

Additionally, POSIX conformance ensures that applications built with VxWorks will remain portable as technologies continue to evolve.

Open, optimized tools and development environment
Wind River VxWorks platforms include Wind River Workbench, an integrated, Eclipse-based development suite for every phase of device software development, from hardware and board bring-up through application development, platform integration, and test. Not only does Workbench come with first-rate compiling, debugging, and code analysis tools, its Eclipse framework enables developers to snap in and leverage hundreds of open-source, in-house, and proprietary tools. Workbench is operating-system-agnostic, allowing companies to standardize development practices while choosing the most effective OS for the application they want to build.

Wind River is a Strategic Member of the Eclipse Foundation and leader of the Device Software Development Platform (DSDP) project.

Unit Tester and Diagnostics
New to Workbench are innovative Unit Tester and Diagnostics capabilities, making it possible to debug dynamically, as well as to insert sensors during development that provide unprecedented visibility into deployed devices, allowing manufacturers to collect information and support devices in the field.

Integrated middleware
Wind River VxWorks platforms ship with tested, validated, and preintegrated run-time technologies matched to vertical market needs, allowing development teams to invest their time and energy in innovative engineering at the application level, rather than spend them on basic, low-level tasks. Modular middleware includes networking, Web services, security, wireless, management, and graphics technologies, as well as support for industry-specific run-time capabilities.

Modules provide scalability out-of-the-box
Not all projects that require an RTOS have the same needs. Consumer devices need super-fast boot times, for example, while medical and industrial applications must offer extreme reliability. VxWorks now offers customers four modular configuration choices, ranging from a minimal but fully bootable kernel (about 50KB, including BSP); a full-service operating system; an OS that supports applications; and a platform-capable kernel that supports middleware (600+ KB). Companies can select the run-time configuration best suited to the device they want to build, with no sacrifice of API support.

Frameworks allow you to extend and customize capabilities
VxWorks now includes innovative framework infrastructures that allow companies to "plug and build" custom capabilities into their RTOS. Frameworks presently available include:

• Power management: enhances ability to control power use
• File systems: supports multiple file systems (DOS, FAT, HRFS, etc.) and enables advanced multimedia functionality
• Schedulers: includes a default scheduler, a POSIX scheduler, and support for in-house schedulers, making kernel customization easier than ever before
• Interconnect: eases the pain of leveraging new backplane interconnect technologies

Using VxWorks' frameworks infrastructure gives development teams the freedom to determine the behavior of their system and the size of their BOM.

OS virtualization and multiprocessor support
The complexity of today's devices taxes the capabilities of traditional processor models. VxWorks now supports the ability to run two concurrent operating systems on a single processing layer, as well as loosely coupled multiprocessing. Native TIPC support enables communication between contiguous OSes, offering maximum flexibility in system design. Our roadmap includes multicore support to coincide with the availability of next-generation hardware.

Wind River VxWorks Platforms
General Purpose Platform
Platform for Automotive Devices
Platform for Consumer Devices
Platform for Network Equipment
Platform for Industrial Devices
Platform for Safety Critical ARINC 653
Platform for Safety Critical DO-178B