Introducing eLxr Pro for
Aerospace & Defense
Innovate secure, high-performance, cost-effective solutions scaling from the intelligent edge to near edge to enterprise.
Elxr Pro
Building on more than two decades of edge and embedded technology leadership, Wind River® introduces eLxr Pro™, a purpose-built Linux distribution for mission-critical applications from cloud deployments to the intelligent edge. eLxr Pro adds community-hardened packages and commercial support from Wind River. A&D use cases span the cloud-to-edge domain.
MOSA Support
In the past, systems integrators and prime contractors designed bespoke systems using custom hardware and software that was difficult to upgrade and locked in the vendor for the life of the program. The US Department of Defense has mandated a Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) as a technical and business acquisition strategy for new systems. The goals are to reduce costs and avoid vendor lock-in by:
- Supporting open standards
- Designing in a modular architecture for upgradeability
- Using industry-standard interfaces for interoperability
- Certifying standards conformance to ensure true MOSA support
The first release of a new Debian derivative includes commercial support from Wind River.
As an upstream-first, Debian-based distribution, eLxr Pro directly and objectively supports a MOSA to ease IP reuse, easily integrates with multiple commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware platforms, and scales from enterprise cloud to far edge workloads. A modern systems architecture including native support for Kubernetes and very lightweight K3s containers ensures robust system updateability. Program managers can readily comply with MOSA requirements when designing in eLxr Pro.
Hosting Platforms
Department of Defense enterprise systems have strict hosting platform requirements for high-performance computing, scalable operations, security, and analytics support. Ongoing monitoring and timely remediation for common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) are essential components of ongoing security and maintenance. Program managers have struggled to find platforms that can “do it all” and must make tradeoffs, especially in supportability and timely priority defect resolution.
eLxr Pro delivers a high-performance and cloud-ready platform for application hosting. Cloud-native and container support deliver workload portability to allow applications to be reused from the enterprise to the far edge. Customers adopt eLxr Pro to gain access to Wind River’s CVE remediation services led by our Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT), ongoing threat monitoring, timely fixes with upstream contributions, and proactive security alerts.
Command and Control Systems
Communication is the lifeblood of any service branch, especially when the service is deployed beyond a base. The command and control systems must be reliable, resilient, and secure and must scale to meet a wide range of deployment strategies. New systems must additionally conform to open acquisition strategies such as MOSA. However, older platforms lack the performance and scalability characteristics that today’s systems require, and they don’t conform to MOSA standards for open architectures, industry standards, or modularity.
eLxr Pro delivers the features that the next generation in command and control systems require: predictable execution with reliable processing, high availability, redundancy, robust error handling, fewer packages for reduced attack surface, and strong access controls. All without compromising on MOSA principles: no vendor lock-in, broad hardware compatibility, and comprehensive support for industry standards.
eLxr Pro provides the features required by next-gen command and control systems.
Secure Software Development
Presidential Executive Order 14028 set the implementation of secure software supply chains as a new standard to ensure the integrity and safety of the software products used by the government. Vendors must conform to the NIST SP 800-218 standard for a Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF). Wind River has adopted the Wind River Secure Development Lifecycle (SDL), which is aligned with NIST 800-218 principles, thus conforming to this presidential mandate.
As part of the Cybersecurity Supply Chain Risk Management (C-SCRM) strategy, the National Security Agency recommends, and in a growing number of cases Department of Defense entities require, that vendors provide a software bill of materials (SBOM) to verify the provenance of software components. Wind River delivers a complete SBOM with eLxr Pro.
Achieving Objectives
Accelerating Program Delivery at Reduced Risk
Prime integrators and the tri-services need to accelerate the pace of modernization, delivering programs on time, on budget, and without introducing unmanageable risk. Wind River Studio Developer provides an end-to-end CI/CD platform to develop modern systems architected for tomorrow. Technologies proven across hundreds of programs and pre-certified IP blocks speed safety certification programs and mitigate certification risk.
Wind River–supported simulation supports full system simulation even before hardware is available, shifting left the development and test cycle to lower costs.
Certifying Safety
Proving airworthiness, especially in today’s multi-core, distributed IMA architectures, is one of the toughest challenges for civilian and military airframe designs. Wind River technologies have been verified in more than 750 safety programs up to DO-178C DAL A. Wind River Professional Services offers unmatched expertise in meeting safety certification standards, proven across hundreds of programs.
Enabling Innovation and Reuse
To maintain a technological advantage, cutting-edge capabilities must be adopted into new programs, architected under a modular open systems approach (MOSA) to maximize reuse. Wind River Helix™ Virtualization Platform’s robust partitioning allows reuse of existing IP along with integration of your cutting-edge innovations. Helix Platform also supports independent build, link, and load, allowing independent, asynchronous development, test, and delivery of software applications per the DO-297 integrated modular avionics (IMA) standard on both Arm® and Intel® architectures.
Security
With the ever-present threat of cyber disruption in aerospace and defense systems, the adage that there is no safety without security has never been more true. Recognizing that, the US Government now mandates that the software it buys must be secure by design. Meeting that mandate, Wind River complies with the NIST 800-218 standard for a secure development lifecycle and has filed attestations with the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
VxWorks® and Helix Platform support compliance with the principles in DO-356A for good security design and offer the Information Assurance Framework to use hardware security capabilities to enhance overall security capabilities of avionics systems. Professional Services offers security assessments and security hardening guides to augment and extend product security capabilities.
Performance
New designs face the ongoing pressure of doing more, faster, and with fewer system resources. VxWorks is the first RTOS to support OCI-compliant containers, which ease the process of embedded application management. This allows the consolidation of applications into fewer systems by running secure, isolated containers on single or distributed systems, improving scalability, simplifying deployment, and enhancing system update capabilities. Helix Platform supports consolidation of mixed safety criticality and security onto one platform to achieve SWaP-C goals.
Conforming to Industry Standards
Supporting industry standards reduces costs, speeds development, and eases interoperability. For aerospace and defense use cases, Wind River supports essential standards. Aligned with a MOSA, VxWorks is conformant to the FACE™ 3.1 Base Safety and Security profiles while Wind River Linux is conformant to the FACE 3.1 General Purpose Profile. Helix Platform is the first mixed-criticality real-time platform conformant to the FACE 3.2 Base Safety and Security profiles. VxWorks and Helix Platform are ARINC 653 compliant and have successfully been proven to DO-178C DAL A. VxWorks and Helix Platform also support IEEE 1588 protocols for Time-Sensitive Networking.
Leading Aerospace and Defense Companies Trust Wind River
The Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace is the premier offering of Tradewinds, the Department of Defense (DoD) suite of tools and services designed to accelerate the procurement and adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and data and analytics capabilities. Wind River® Studio Developer is Awardable by Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace.
Secure Software Development Lifecycle
Wind River complies with Executive Order 14028, as we attested to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) that our products are securely designed in accordance with the Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF) set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in NIST SP 800-218.
» Learn MoreHow Wind River Helps
With technology proven by more than 330 customers over 750 safety programs in more than 120 civilian and military aircraft, Wind River has over three decades of experience helping to build safe, secure, and reliable computing systems for demanding commercial aircraft, space exploration, and military operations.
A Word About Aptiv Acquisition for US Defense Customers
The acquisition of Wind River by Aptiv in December 2022 brought together synergistic technologies and decades of experience delivering safety-critical systems. Wind River’s commitment to aerospace and defense is unwavering, and our investment and strategy remains focused on delivering safe, secure, and reliable solutions. As part of Aptiv, Wind River has enhanced resources for our next phase of growth, which will allow us to further accelerate our investment and efforts for you. The opportunity for our customers to leverage Wind River’s investments in cloud-native software solutions is further enhanced by our relationship with Aptiv, as we collectively enable our clients’ digital transformation.
» Learn More
Wind River Studio Developer
For aerospace and defense development teams modernizing or transforming the development, deployment, and operation of their intelligent systems, Wind River Studio has been architected to easily scale to simultaneously run different projects with multiple operating systems and hardware architectures, all from a single pane of glass.
» Explore Wind River Studio Developer
VxWorks
Bullet proof, future-proof: VxWorks supports containers for app deployment (the first and only RTOS to do so), C++17, Boost, Rust, Python, and more. And it’s still #1 (VDC). Lower your procurement and certification costs while meeting stringent industry standards such as DO-178C, IEC 61508, ISO 26262, ARINC 653, POSIX®, and FACE™ using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) standards conformance and safety certification evidence.
» Explore VxWorks
Wind River Linux
Wind River Linux delivers military-grade Linux with a combination of system-level security reinforcements, such as access control mechanisms and intrusion detection and prevention tools, with long-term security update strategies for deployed devices. With validated, maintained, and supported source code, as well as a comprehensive suite of services including CVE monitoring, Wind River Linux is certified for ISO 9001 and for conformance to the FACE™ Technical Standard as an Operating System Segment (OSS) that supports the General Purpose Profile (GPP).
» Explore Wind River Linux
Wind River Helix Virtualization Platform
Based on our industry-leading VxWorks 653, Helix Platform consolidates and separates multi-OS and mixed-criticality apps on a single platform. Simplify, secure, and future-proof your aerospace and defense systems.
» Explore Helix Platform
Intel® Simics®
Create digital twins of complex systems and run cyber tests (including pen testing) virtually. Enable agile practices throughout your product’s lifecycle with system simulation and automation technologies.
Intel and Simics are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries.
» Explore Intel® Simics®
Wind River Studio Operator
Wind River Studio Operator, powered by the robust StarlingX, delivers an edge-to-cloud management solution, accelerating the deployment and operation of mission-critical systems and assets.
» Explore Wind River Studio Operator
eLxr Pro
eLxr Pro enables embedded, far to near edge, and enterprise use cases with a Linux OS that’s reliable, real time, robust, right sized, and resilient. eLxr Pro transforms complex embedded systems into streamlined, efficient, and highly functional solutions, ensuring optimal performance and adaptability for A&D enterprise needs.
» Explore eLxr Pro
Industry Standards
Wind River makes it easier and more cost-effective for technology suppliers to meet the stringent requirements of the aerospace and defense industries, with support for industry standards such as ARINC 653, FACE™, RTCA DO-178B and DO-178C, IEC 61508, POSIX®, and more.
» Learn About Our Standards LeadershipResources
Website
For nearly three decades, Wind River has provided NASA with the most proven software platform to bring dozens of intelligent systems to space, resulting in some of the most significant space missions in history.
White Paper
This paper discusses the development of a next-generation smart avionics platform and former experiences.
White Paper
Learn how our industry leadership in TSN manifests in VxWorks, the world's most widely used RTOS.
Blog
Stay up to date with the latest insights into the evolving landscape of intelligent systems in the aerospace and defense sectors.
Video
Given an onboard computer running VxWorks to operate a space vehicle, we’ll look at the benefits of time-sensitive networking (TSN) for critical controller devices.