Virtualisation offering drives IoT device development

Virtualization Profile for VxWorks is based on Wind River virtualisation technology and extends the scalability capabilities of VxWorks by integrating a real-time embedded, Type 1 hypervisor into the core of the RTOS. Through embedded virtualisation, it allows VxWorks customers to consolidate multiple disparate workloads on a single processor. Critical in today's era of IoT, it helps to address the need for robust, safer and more secure partitioning across all market segments.

Storage virtualisation through VirtIO allows devices to share a single storage controller, even a single disk, such as a Serial ATA device between multiple virtual machines, thereby dramatically reducing cost and complexity for consolidated systems. The run-time configuration, combined with support for the VirtIO device virtualisation framework makes the virtualisation profile a flexible and highly customisable virtualisation layer for embedded devices. Enhanced security capabilities include seamless integration with the Security Profile for VxWorks. These capabilities help customers to guard security from power-on all the way through VM load and beyond with secure boot, secure load, and data encryption during transmission and after shutdown. Expanded support for Intel Atom and Celeron processors provides even greater choices for customers to build product lines that scale from low end controllers to major gateways and high performance compute and display stations.

“Virtualisation is a key attribute in GE’s global vision for industrial control systems in the era of the industrial internet. It allows the GE businesses to combine their real-time control logic, HMI, security, and cloud connectivity into a single platform,” said Wes Skeffington, Principal Engineer, GE. “Wind River’s virtualisation offering provides the right attributes like scalability, storage virtualisation, real-time behaviour, virtual machine isolation, and security capabilities to realise this vision.”

“Embedded virtualisation allows customers to meet the challenges of the IoT era; it enables a future-proof architecture that can adapt and evolve to meet changing market requirements, customer needs, and technology advancements,” said Dinyar Dastoor, Vice President and General Manager of operating system platforms at Wind River. “With these latest virtualisation and security capability enhancements, Wind River has further strengthened VxWorks as the leading RTOS for IoT where connectivity, scalability and the ability to develop safer and more secure environments are paramount.”

The Virtualization Profile for VxWorks is an integral part of the Intel Industrial Solutions System Consolidation series, a production-ready, virtualisation software stack used for running an assortment of industrial and IoT workloads on a single platform.