Enhancing intelligence with the Internet of Things

Enhancing Intelligence in the
‘Internet of Things’
The Business of Embedded Virtualization
Alexander Damisch, Director, Industrial Vertical, Wind River

INNOVATORS START HERE.

ENHANCING INTELLIGENCE IN THE ‘INTERNET OF THINGS’

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
A key driver for embedded system designers is the cloud. With billions of devices becoming connected in the “Internet of things” and sharing data through the cloud, there is a
key challenge in managing this complexity. The amount of data that is moved around the
Internet is expected to double in just three years and there are different architectures for
addressing this challenge of sharing and managing data securely and reliably in the cloud.
This is a different situation from the existing migration of apps into the IT cloud. Systems
handling machine-to-machine (M2M) data have to be reliable, secure, and scalable with
real-time performance measured in microseconds. All this data has to be available anytime, anywhere, and this is opening up new ways for equipment to be designed and built.
This paper takes a look at the key industry trends driving consolidation of processing
workloads to make all the functionality on a device secure, manageable, and scalable.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Industry Trends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
. .
Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
. .
Complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
. .
Virtualization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Smart Grid. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 ..
Manufacturing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Transportation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Consolidation and Separation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Scalability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2 | White Paper | Wind River Confidential. Internal Use Only.


INDUSTRY TRENDS

system grows in a haphazard, unmanaged way. Often the original

One architecture that is gaining ground is to provide more local-

elements of the system are so critical that there is no opportunity

ized, connected processing power close to where it is needed,

to pull everything out and start again from scratch, leading to a

often as a gateway to the wider Internet. In this way, local traffic

more evolutionary architecture.

can be processed quickly and acted on, while the data is still avail-

This often leads to a highly complex base of software that is con-

able to the wider systems across the Internet, whether it is a train,

stantly patched and not well documented, creating bugs, errors,

a manufacturing floor, or a power plant.

and glitches. The safety-critical elements of the design, from

At the heart of this approach is the ability to consolidate a num-

programmable logic controllers to sensors, tend to be relatively

ber of functions, from the communications to the data processing.

simple, well-tested devices that have well-defined code and states

This is costly and complex when implemented in separate boxes,

and are left alone. As a result, adding new functions and features

and the ability to consolidate a wide range of functions reliably

can often impact the overall performance of the system.

and securely into an intelligent single unit that is more cost effec-

All of this is reflected in higher costs for upgrading, managing, and

tive is increasingly popular.

protecting the system. With many industrial embedded systems

Security

not built with communications or security in mind, this is a signifi-

This trend has implications for security. Consolidating workloads in
a single device means communications are linked to real-time operations and the flow of data. This means there is a need to keep certain functions very separate. Safety-critical code has to be protected
and unchanged to retain its certification, and yet the security that
protects the system has to be updated regularly to defend against
ever changing attacks. At the same time, there are communications protocols and data capture in the system that need real-time
performance alongside human interfaces that can be run at slower
speeds.
All of this provides a potentially highly complex environment. The
traditional approach has been to have separate devices for each
of these functions, keeping communications and real- time elements separate. However, security needs to be deeply embedded
within the system to provide the maximum protection, and physical separation leads to a number of architectural challenges that
can be expensive to solve.
Complexity

cant part of the cost of doing business.

Virtualization
Virtualization has been solving a number of these challenges.
Using multiple cores and time and space separation it has been
possible to run the different elements—security, communications,
real-time, and user interface—on separate operating systems on
separate cores. Sometimes these separate cores are in separate
devices on a single board, replacing multiple boards in a system.
Increasingly, these elements have been coming together in a single
multi-core device, offering higher performance that can be used
for more features or lower power consumption, which is now a key
consideration. This trend is being supported with new approaches
such as virtualization extensions within processors capable of supporting time and space separation in hardware, increasing performance and reducing power consumption and system cost.
Now it is possible to run multiple operating systems and separate applications on a single core and still achieve the real-time
performance that many embedded industrial systems require. This

This separation tends to show up in system architectures in a

allows for significantly lower cost and complexity as well as lower

number of ways. Often it shows up with new devices being added

power consumption than with multi-core systems.

to the system to provide new features or new security, and the



Smart Grid

Manufacturing

The current industry focus on the smart grid is a classic example

Similarly, manufacturing plants can benefit from virtualization. A

of the challenges of adding intelligence and networking to exist-

single-core device can run several “soft” programmable logic

ing legacy systems. The concept of the smart grid is driven by the

controllers (PLC) and provide the security and communications

need to integrate variable power sources such as wind or wave

for sensors and networks around the shop floor through a real-

power into the existing power grid based around static sources

time operating system. Graphical interfaces can be added via the

such as traditional power stations. To do this requires “smart

non-real-time elements to make machines more user friendly and

meters” that measure consumption in the home, office, or factory

productive with an easy upgrade process that does not perturb

as well as a network to carry that data back and control the differ-

other parts of the systems.

ent parts of the grid based on the real-time data. This is a highly
complex task that requires large amounts of data handling and
processing power overlaid on a grid that was constructed in the
1950s or even earlier.

With the communications stacks implemented securely and reliably, all the data from around the floor can be available whenever
and wherever required. This can be used to make planning more
efficient and allow algorithms to spot potential problems within

While there are large scale data centre implementations for han-

the equipment, triggering preventative maintenance routines and

dling predictive algorithms, a vast amount of processing has to be

reducing costly downtime.

handled towards the edge of the grid. Potentially handling thousands of smart meters and sensors throughout the grid, this acts
as a gateway to the wider network and protects all those meters
and power systems from intrusion. Real-time performance is vital,
as is reliability and traceability of all the data when it is used for
billing purposes.
There is a very clear place for such gateways acting as servers for
the “client” meters, but the current multi-core devices can have
higher performance than necessary. The performance of single
core devices is now such that one device can run a secure realtime operating system such as Wind River’s VxWorks® that can

Transportation
Transport shows similar characteristics. Increasing amounts of electronics are making their way into transportation systems, especially
trains. New safety-critical braking control and signaling systems are
being implemented alongside data management and entertainment networks, all on a physical platform that is decades old. Costeffective commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) systems based around
single-core devices can now handle these key features such as train
information systems and other functions safely and securely.
Instead of having signals on the rail, trains now have their own

handle both data and communications stacks alongside a general

highly sophisticated signal and position management systems.

purpose operating system such as Microsoft Windows or embed-

Positive train control systems are adding highly connected intel-

ded Linux. This simplifies the system design and allows existing

ligence in trains, for example, making them position-aware as

code to be run safely and securely but also allows security to

well as providing a centralized advanced train control (ATC) man-

be updated regularly. New features and data handling routines

agement system. This ATC system is a key example of an M2M

can be added in the non-real-time portion of the design without

cloud architecture, taking data from trains around the network to

impacting on the real-time, security, or communications elements.

enhance the operation and safety of the system as a whole. Using

This dramatically reduces the complexity, risk, and costs of rolling

this connected distributed intelligence can improve safety and

out the infrastructure that is required for the smart grid.

performance but the challenge is to implement such a system cost
effectively.



Operational Control Center

High A
Authority
Management
Server

Remote
Users

Communications

Train Control

Training/Train
Controller/
Transit
Manager

Train
Control
Servers

*n
TCP/IP
Router

UPS

Authority
Server,
Trainborne,
Wayside

Trainborne

Diagnostic Support

GPS Location
Determination

Trackside
Crossing

Key

Local Communications

Wireless
Network

Defect
Detectors

Control
Point

Rail-Rail
Interfaces

Wayside Interface Units (WIUs)

Architecture of a positive train control system

Consolidation and Separation

Scalability

There are two areas where virtualization is particularly relevant:

A key element of virtualization is the scalability. Supporting mul-

providing consolidation of workloads and combining communica-

tiple operating systems on a single core means the system is eas-

tion stacks with other functions.

ily expandable to higher-performance multi-core devices with

Consolidation of workloads is at the heart of the move to having
all data accessible anywhere. Keeping real-time functions separate
from general data processing and handling is vital to maintaining systems’ responsiveness, but it all has to be kept secure. This
leads to new system architectures based around the dynamic flow
of data. Here, control, interface, security, and communications are
all kept separate as they all change at different rates and have
different requirements. Being able to combine these functions in
a single device and still keep them separate is a vital element in
providing design flexibility and agility.


minimal risk. The multi-core device can handle the operating systems on separate cores, providing higher performance for more
advanced features without having to rewrite and retest the existing system implementation. This brings a dramatic savings in the
development time and costs of moving to a new generation of
equipment. This also allows vendors to provide scalable equipment platforms that are based around a common code base that
is tested and reliable.


CONCLUSION

a single board rather than multiple units with multiple boards

Virtualization has already opened up a wide range of new applica-

reduces the upfront costs. With millions of M2M systems being

tions in IT, but the ability to provide true real-time performance

rolled out, connected to hundreds of thousands of gateway units,

alongside a mainstream operating system opens up yet more

this is a significant savings in the upfront cost of a rollout.

embedded opportunities in new and existing markets. Smart

Decoupling the software life cycle of different elements and still

grid networks, manufacturing systems, and transportation are

being able to use a single device can reduce expenses. Not man-

all set to benefit from the consolidation of workloads and the

aging multiple versions of replacement boards and having fewer

separation of communication and security functions onto a single

boxes on the shelf reduces operational expenses of warehousing

core.

and stock management. Replacing units with problems before they

This allows cost-effective embedded systems to be developed that

fail is also significantly simpler and more cost effective with a single

are secure, reliable, and future-proof. Running the same operating

unit rather than multiple boards.

systems on a single core and multi-core device opens up a platform

All of this can provide dramatic savings in development time and

of equipment that can scale from a single core to many, all with the

equipment cost, allowing more processing performance to sit

same base of software.

closer to where it is needed in the network and support lower cost

Consolidation of workloads also has a significant effect on the capi-

sensors and terminals in the home or on the factory floor.

tal and operational expenditures. Building a single unit with

Wind River is a world leader in embedded and mobile software. Wind River has been pioneering computing inside embedded devices since 1981, and its technology is found in more than
1 billion products. Wind River is headquartered in Alameda, California, with offices in more than 20 countries. To learn more, visit Wind River at www.windriver.com.
©2012 Wind River Systems, Inc. The Wind River logo is a trademark of Wind River Systems, Inc., and Wind River and VxWorks are registered trademarks of Wind River Systems, Inc. Rev 05/2012

Enhancing intelligence with the Internet of Things

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