Wind River announces RISC-V support for VxWorks RTOS

Wind River announced this week RISC-V open architecture support for its VxWorks real-time operating system (RTOS), which is a widely deployed commercial RTOS to have support for the RISC-V open hardware instruction set architecture (ISA). 

The company has also joined the RISC-V Foundation, a non-profit consortium chartered to standardize, protect, and promote RISC-V ISA together with its hardware and software ecosystem for use in all computing devices.

VxWorks is a deterministic, high-performance RTOS that sets the standard for a scalable, future-proof, secure, safe, and reliable operating environment for mission-critical devices and systems that must meet the highest standards.

VxWorks is ideal for hard real-time embedded applications because it is a deterministic, priority-based, preemptive RTOS with low latency and minimal jitter. In addition to standard preemption, VxWorks can ensure that safety- and time-critical applications get a predetermined number of CPU cycles through various forms of scheduling as well as time and space partitioning. It also provides flexible features needed for various industries. 

As new features and functionality are added to VxWorks, compatibility is always top of mind because Wind River strives to protect and future proof its customers’ software and tool investments. Compatibility allows developers to take advantage of the latest VxWorks innovation, enabling them to add new features and upgrades with minimal retesting of the entire system, thereby saving both project time and expense.

VxWorks has IPv4 and IPv6 stacks that are also time-sensitive networking (TSN) capable, guaranteeing real-time communications and packet delivery within a bounded time or latency on a switched Ethernet network. VxWorks supports industrial applications, including but not limited to OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA); SocketCAN used in automotive applications; and host, target, and on-the-go (OTG) USB.

VxWorks supports 32- and 64-bit, as well as multi-core processors including Intel, Arm and Power Architecture. Its comprehensive multi-core processor support allows OS configurations for asymmetric multiprocessing (AMP) and for symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) with CPU affinity for bound multiprocessing (BMP). 

Adding RISC-V support for VxWorks comes on the heels of the recent wave of innovations made to the RTOS, making it the first to include support for C++17, Boost, Python, and the Rust collection of technologies.

“We are pleased to welcome Wind River into the RISC-V Foundation and our global ecosystem," said Calista Redmond, CEO of the RISC-V Foundation. “VxWorks significantly extends the reach of RISC-V in the embedded developer space. We look forward to continued software developments by Wind River and the RISC-V community.”

“It’s exciting to see RISC-V gain significant industry traction as it brings the dynamism of open architecture development to hardware,” said Michel Genard, vice president of product at Wind River. “Wind River is very pleased to continue innovating VxWorks while contributing to the success of RISC-V with collaborations like the ones we have with SiFive and MicroChip providing support for their Unleashed and PolarFire SoC FPGA boards.”

“Having VxWorks support for our RISC-V-based PolarFire SoC FPGA family brings an extremely compelling offering to embedded systems designers who increasingly need real-time, and Linux capable solutions that are low power, thermally efficient, and secure,” said Shakeel Peera, associate vice president, marketing, FPGA business unit at Microchip. “Our partnership with Wind River is an important one as we work together to advance the collaborative RISC-V ecosystem and community.”

“The adoption of RISC-V by Wind River in VxWorks is a great step in the ongoing enablement of the RISC-V ecosystem,” said Dr. Naveed Sherwani, president and CEO of SiFive. “The ability to run VxWorks on SiFive Core IP and devices will enable new application markets across the world.”

IDC announces that global converged systems market grows 3.5 percent year over year during the third quarter

According to data released this week by the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Converged Systems Tracker, global converged systems market revenue increased 3.5 percent year over year to US$3.75 billion during the third quarter of this year. 

IDC's converged systems market view offers three segments: certified reference systems and integrated infrastructure, integrated platforms, and hyperconverged systems. The certified reference systems and integrated infrastructure market generated roughly $1.26 billion in revenue during the third quarter, which represents a contraction of 8.4 percent year over year and 33.7 percent of all converged systems revenue. 

Integrated platforms sales declined 13.9 percent year over year in the third quarter of this year, generating $475 million worth of sales. This amounted to 12.6 percent of the total converged systems market revenue. 

Revenue from hyperconverged systems sales grew 18.7 percent year over year during the third quarter of 2019, generating nearly $2.02 billion worth of sales. This amounted to 53.7 percent of the total converged systems market.

"The converged systems market continues to grow despite a challenging overall datacenter infrastructure environment," said Sebastian Lagana, research manager, Infrastructure Platforms and Technologies at IDC. "In particular, hyperconverged solutions remain in demand as vendors do an excellent job positioning the solutions as an ideal framework for hybrid, multi-cloud environments due to their software-defined nature and ease of integration into premises-agnostic environments."

IDC offers two ways to rank technology suppliers within the hyperconverged systems market: by the brand of the hyperconverged solution or by the owner of the software providing the core hyperconverged capabilities. 

As the data relates to the branded view of the hyperconverged systems market, Dell Technologies was the largest supplier with $708.4 million in revenue and a 35.1 percent share. Nutanix generated $262.2 million in branded hardware revenue, representing 13.0 percent of the total HCI market during the quarter. There was a three-way tie for third between Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Lenovo, generating $109.0 million, $91.9 million, and $91.5 million in revenue each, which represents 5.4 percent, 4.6 percent, and 4.5 percent share of the market share respectively. 

From the software ownership view of the market, new systems running VMware hyperconverged software represented $766.2 million in total in the third quarter of this year vendor revenue, or 38.0 percent of the total market. Systems running Nutanix hyperconverged software represented $549.2 million in third quarter vendor revenue or 27.2 percent of the total market. Both amounts represent the value of all HCI hardware, HCI software, and system infrastructure software sold, regardless of how it was branded at the hardware level. 

Red Hat extends security profile of its Enterprise Linux platform, renews FIPS 140-2 validation for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6

Red Hat announced Tuesday the renewal of the Federal Information Processing Standard 140-2 (FIPS 140-2) security validations for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6. Driven by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), FIPS 140-2 is a computer security standard that specifies the requirements for cryptographic modules -- including both hardware and software components -- used within a security system to protect sensitive information.

This renewed validation maintains and extends Red Hat’s leadership in providing mission-critical-ready open source technologies to government agencies and regulated industries, such as healthcare and telecommunications. 

With Red Hat’s FIPS 140-2 validated solutions, these industries can better meet necessary information security guidelines without compromising on the need for flexible software solutions. Red Hat maintains a strong commitment to providing open, more secure IT innovation to the public sector, with the company’s technologies now holding more than 20 active FIPS validations that meet the criteria for use by U.S. government agencies.

FIPS 140-2 validation is needed when agencies determine that specific information systems should use cryptography to protect data; if cryptography is required, then it must be validated. In order to achieve FIPS 140-2 validation, cryptographic modules are subject to testing by NIST-accredited independent Cryptographic and Security Testing Laboratories. 

The validation for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6 was performed by Atsec information security corporation’s Cryptographic and Security Testing Laboratory in Austin, Texas. Atsec is an independent organization with long-standing experience in IT security standards.

In addition to the renewed certification of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.7 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 are currently on the NIST "Implementation Under Test" list with the intent to extend FIPS 140-2 validation to the latest releases of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 platforms.

PTC comes together with Magic Leap to boost capabilities of augmented reality in enterprises

PTC announced Tuesday an alliance with Magic Leap that will allow enterprise and industrial customers to combine the augmented reality (AR) capabilities of its Vuforia Engine solution with Magic Leap 1 wearable headset.

Vuforia Engine offers dynamic Object Recognition and can perceive images, 3D models and environments to provide development flexibility. The technology offered by Vuforia Engine lets developers freely build branded AR for new or existing applications.

Vuforia Engine provides users with advanced computer vision and cross-platform reach, and supports the broadest range of devices on the market. Beginning this month, PTC will offer Vuforia Engine to Magic Leap 1 customers, who will have access to the latest AR innovations of Vuforia Engine, including its differentiated artificial intelligence (AI) -based Model Target technology. 

The combination of this software with Magic Leap’s hardware and spatial computing technology will offer customers a value-rich solution for the enterprise.

“Industry leaders today need to have the flexibility to select the best hardware and software to fit their needs,” said Michael Campbell, EVP and GM, augmented reality products, PTC. “This collaboration enables our many industrial customers to pair our powerful AR software with equally powerful hardware.”

In the era of digital transformation, enterprises and industrial companies are turning to new technologies to help them prepare for shifting customer expectations, uncertain global trade, cost pressures, and workforce shortages. AR offers companies an innovative and effective way to connect people to digital content where and when they need it, thereby increasing efficiency, providing more-impactful training, and achieving greater overall cost savings.

“We’re excited to announce our collaboration with PTC,” said Omar Khan, chief product officer, Magic Leap. “The opportunity for AR across the enterprise is enormous, and we want all businesses to be able to leverage industry-leading technology that can enhance productivity throughout the digital workplace.”

Kanguru debuts OS Agnostic, its fingerprint encrypted access flash drive with remote management capability

Kanguru launched its OS Agnostic, its Fingerprint Access Hardware Encrypted Flash Drive with remote management capability. This biometric fingerprint access flash drive supplants the bulky pinpads and fussy combo keypads of encrypted devices, making it convenient and easy to use. 

With the tap of the finger, the Kanguru Defender Bio-Elite30 Fingerprint Hardware Encrypted Flash Drive provides quick access to encrypted files.

The Defender Bio-Elite30 Fingerprint Encrypted Flash Drive is OS platform agnostic; 256-bit hardware encryption (XTS Mode); and assigns multi-finger access for each fingerprint or user(s). It also features new command console with onboard browser; option to remotely manage with Kanguru Remote Management Console (KRMC); and comes with optional on-board antivirus, real-time scanning protection by BitDefender. It is also RSA-2048 digitally-signed secure firmware and TAA compliant.

Being OS Agnostic, the Defender Bio-Elite30 can be used on virtually any machine, from Windows and MacOS, to medical equipment, smart TVs and even ATMs for making bank machine updates. This makes it highly versatile for all types of industries.

With best-in-class AES 256-Bit hardware encryption, the new biometric fingerprint encrypted flash drive allows a user to assign multiple finger access for themselves, and/or others whom they authorize. Permissions can be enabled for full read/write secure entry, or read only restricted access to allow users to simply view the encrypted files.

The Defender Bio-Elite30 Fingerprint secure flash drive is USB powered, rising above all other competitive devices that require a battery which could fail at the worst possible time.

Intel Solutions Marketplace for Partners enhances speed growth, innovation through global collaboration

Intel launched Intel Solutions Marketplace platform to help partners deploy solutions in an increasingly complex, data-centric economy. On the new platform, and all from personal dashboards, Intel partners can grow their businesses through new partner connections and matchmaking, receive and manage leads, monitor business performance, and market solutions to end customers. 

The Intel Solutions Marketplace is an online platform that drives collaboration in a new data-centric landscape, where users can explore offerings and network with Intel partners. For partners who have posting access, the Intel Solutions Marketplace enables network and co-create with industry providers, differentiate offerings and showcase them to enterprise end customers. 

The platform joins Intel Partner University as a key offering of Intel Partner Alliance, the company’s announced channel partner program transformation designed to help partners connect, innovate and grow in a data-centric world.

The Solutions Marketplace facilitates better collaboration between partners, helping them focus on desired outcomes and delivering customization. The platform is equipped with new capabilities that enable partners to connect and collaborate with a global network of other peer partners to jointly deliver innovative data-centric solutions to business end customers. 

Today, solutions typically include hardware, software and services in varying combinations and are increasingly being designed to solve specific business challenges. 

For example, a solution to help a municipality reduce energy consumption using smart devices could be entirely led by the services side of the business, while an artificial intelligence solution to drive predictive maintenance for reduced downtime might be led by a software or hardware vendor. The Solutions Marketplace makes this kind of collaboration easier and more efficient.

Intel Solutions Marketplace encourages partners to collaborate within an expanded ecosystem, allowing Intel partners and business end customers to research and pursue thousands of partner solutions, including Intel IOT Market Ready Solutions, artificial intelligence, autonomous technology, data center and cloud, 5G, and next-generation computing. It enables a new way for partners to innovate, go to market and grow their businesses.

The Intel Solutions Marketplace is designed to drive collaboration across the ecosystem, making it easy for partners to connect with each other, all within the trusted Intel ecosystem. Intel will roll out enhancements throughout 2020 to help partners manage leads, monitor performance from personal dashboards and continue to grow their businesses.

Veritas tested and validated for AWS Outposts; will help customers overcome challenges of on-premises and cloud environments

Veritas Technologies announced this week that it has the capabilities to support AWS Outposts, and has tested it and found that it can help to deliver positive customer outcomes at scale through re-architecting complex workloads to run on AWS.

AWS Outposts are fully managed and configurable compute and storage racks built with Amazon Web Services (AWS)-designed hardware that allow customers to run compute and storage on-premises, while seamlessly connecting to AWS’s broad array of services in the cloud. 

AWS and Veritas customers may have certain workloads that need to remain on-premises for several years, such as applications that are latency sensitive and need to be near on-premises assets. These customers want to be able to run AWS compute and storage on-premises, while easily and seamlessly integrating these workloads with the rest of their applications on AWS. 

Until now, customers lacked the same APIs, tools, hardware, and functionality across on-premises and cloud to deliver a truly consistent hybrid experience. 

AWS Outposts solves these challenges by delivering racks of AWS compute and storage—the same hardware used in AWS public region datacenters—to customers, bringing AWS services, infrastructure, and operating models on-premises. With AWS Outposts, Veritas can help AWS customers overcome the challenges that exist with managing and supporting infrastructures in both on-premises and cloud environments and deliver positive outcomes at scale.

Veritas worked closely with the AWS Outposts team to be one of the first AWS Partner Network (APN) members to successfully test and validate its solution with AWS Outposts. This included the deployment of a NetBackup Amazon Machine Image (AMI) to AWS Outposts and the backup and recovery of workloads for mission critical applications between AWS Outposts and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). 

Validating Veritas NetBackup on AWS Outposts provides the enterprise scale data protection that Veritas is known for to newly extended on-premises environments.

AWS releases slew of security offerings to help enterprises build and operate

Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company, announced Tuesday three new services and capabilities that make it easier for customers to build and operate securely.

Amazon Detective is a new security service that makes it easy for customers to conduct faster and more efficient investigations into security issues across their workloads (available in preview).

AWS IAM Access Analyzer is a new AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) capability that makes it simple for security teams and administrators to audit resource policies for unintended access, currently available.

AWS Nitro Enclaves is a new Amazon EC2 capability that makes it easy for customers to process highly sensitive data by partitioning compute and memory resources within an instance to create an isolated compute environment, set to be available in preview early next year.

AWS is architected to deliver secure and flexible cloud computing environment. Many of security-minded organizations trust AWS with their sensitive workloads, which in turn means that all AWS customers benefit from rapidly evolving infrastructure and services designed to meet the most exacting standards for security and compliance. 

AWS has taken away much of the undifferentiated heavy lifting associated with enterprise computing, and customers have asked for similar efficiencies in how they go about building and operating securely in the cloud. 

AWS has continuously introduced new capabilities that help customers achieve greater security, including services like Amazon GuardDuty (which continuously monitors for threats to a customer’s accounts and workloads), Amazon Inspector (which assesses application hosts for vulnerabilities and deviations from best practices), Amazon Macie (which uses machine learning to discover, classify, and protect sensitive data), and AWS Security Hub (a unified security and compliance center). 

AWS has also delivered a slew of native features like Amazon S3 Block Public Access that help customers use core services more securely, and technological innovations like the AWS Nitro System that enhance the inherent security of customer instances by moving virtualization and security functions to dedicated hardware and software. 

Amazon Detective, IAM Access Analyzer, and AWS Nitro Enclaves will help in reducing the amount of custom engineering required to meet security and compliance needs, allow security teams to be more efficient and confident when responding to issues, and make it easier for customers to manage access to AWS resources.

“Amazon S3 is one of the most popular cloud storage solutions, but because of human error it’s historically been a bit of a security liability,” said Sean Roberts, general manager of public cloud at Ensono, a hybrid IT services provider. "Over the last few years, hundreds of well-known organizations have suffered data breaches as a direct result of an incorrect S3 configuration – where buckets have been set to public when they should have been private.” 

“When sensitive data is unintentionally exposed online, it can damage an organization’s reputation and lead to serious financial implications. In real terms, this sensitive data is often usernames and passwords, compromising not only the business but its customers too,” Roberts added. “Access Analyzer will be a welcome addition to S3, and will help businesses all over the world audit their storage for misconfigurations and leaky buckets.”