On Target: Embedded Systems

IBM Bolsters DevOps Support with UrbanCode Acquisition

On Monday, IBM announced the acquisition of UrbanCode, a provider of software delivery automation solutions. UrbanCode’s continuous release and deployment tools will be integrated into the IBM Rational portfolio to bolster their DevOps capabilities.              

“…software is eating the world.” – Marc Andreessen

Software has emerged as the primary agent for differentiation for a growing number of companies. It is defining a greater portion of end-value for organization’s solutions, but also consuming an ever-larger share of their development costs. Many of these companies have re-evaluated their processes and adopted Agile methodologies to help speed software development. Our findings suggest this has helped. In VDC’s 2012 software and system developer survey, engineers using Agile were more likely to be ahead of schedule on their current project, despite code bases three times as large as those not using iterative methods.

“Companies that master effective software development and delivery in rapidly changing environments such as cloud, mobile and social will have a significant competitive advantage,” - Kristof Kloeckner, general manager, IBM Rational Software.

Unfortunately, Agile methodologies only address the software development. Just increasing the pace of software design can place considerable strain on an organization and result in bottlenecks elsewhere in the development lifecycle. To move in the right direction, development and operations need to operate at the same velocity. This is where the incorporating the UrbanCode Application Release Automation should provide synergy. By automating much of the testing and deployment processes, organizations can speed up the operations side of their business to match the pace of the Agile software development.

Integration of the UrbanCode offerings into IBM Rational’s portfolio represents a valuable extension of their DevOps implementation support. We expect much of the initial market traction to come from enterprise applications. However, with the volume of embedded software code continuing to grow while project timelines shrink, this approach will increasingly resonate in several embedded industries.

More insight

For further investigation and discussion about Agile development, DevOps and other important shifts in systems lifecycle management, please see our 2012 Software & Systems Lifecycle Management Tools Market Intelligence Service. 

Can Ubuntu Make a Splash in Mobile?

The start of the new year kicked off with an announcement that another open source mobile operating system will be coming to market… but this one is truly unique. The provider of one of the most popular Linux-based desktop operating systems, Canonical, recently announced a distinctive smartphone interface for its Ubuntu operating system. Aside from Android, open source platforms have had a checkered history with limited success in the smartphone environment (e.g. Openmoko, LiMo, MeeGo, webOS). Ubuntu faces much uncertainty with many challenges ahead, but its unique positioning and appeal could help it shine in an increasingly competitive and crowded market.

One of the primary goals of Canonical is to provide a unified family of interfaces for phone, PC and television devices utilizing the Ubuntu OS. Best-suited for high-end multicore “superphones,” the Ubuntu phone OS delivers a rich graphical touch interface with a full PC experience when docked with a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Canonical is also providing a free variant of Ubuntu designed to run on Android phones to immediately enter the mobile market. The OS will support web-based HTML5 and native applications.

Ubuntu has a lot of things going for it that past open source OSs did not. First and foremost, Canonical has been very successful in growing Ubuntu’s presence in enterprise desktops and server platforms across the world since its launch in 2004. The company amassed plenty of experience hosting cloud-based services and app stores, a major obstacle for new entrants to the mobile space, and developed a global market presence through leveraging partnerships with leading PC OEMs including ASUS, Dell, HP and Lenovo. Additionally, application support will be bolstered by Ubuntu’s considerable following of desktop developers and a Webkit made available by Canonical to help migrate applications from the desktop platform.

Though no open source platforms have been able to measure up to Android’s success in the smartphone arena, many network operators and OEMs would like to have an alternate available. They have recognized that the growing duopoly between Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android in the market could stifle innovation and give them too much power over industry participants and users themselves. Furthermore, an alternative operating system, like Ubuntu, could help carriers and manufacturers gain a more substantive relationship with smartphone buyers by adding their own branded offerings.

However, Ubuntu faces numerous obstacles in its quest to make a splash in the smartphone OS market. The two biggest concerns, intensely growing competition and a lack of handset provider support, permeate throughout market for mobile operating system providers. The market already accommodates two huge platforms (Android and iOS) and two others with aspirations of greatness (Windows Phone and Blackberry), and that’s just at the top. By the time the first Ubuntu-based handset comes to market at the end of 2013 (earliest), the next versions of Android and iOS will have been deployed, Blackberry 10 will have finally arrived and Microsoft will be soon-updating its own mobile software. Also, Canonical has yet to disclose any commitments by operators or handset manufacturers to support the Ubuntu operating system and few big-name “superphone” OEMs are likely to be willing to risk a high-profile launch with an unproven mobile OS.

A lot will change the landscape in the meantime leading up to Ubuntu’s eventual mobile debut. The OS contains some very innovative and inspiring design ideas, and Canonical boasts unique core strengths that make their operating system truly different from any other open source OS that has crossed the mobile environment. The new OS will have the opportunity to be a significant player in emerging markets, as well as with people already committed to open source. Though more competition would force the pace of innovation to increase, Google and Apple will be heart-pressed to relinquish any market share and will continue to add to and enhance their own platforms in a bid to stay relevant. Demand for an Ubuntu-like platform exists; it’s just a matter of getting past the crowd at the door.

VDC’s Top 12 of 2012 – Part 2

In case you missed it, I unveiled the first half of our list on Monday. A brief review (see Monday’s post for more details), and then on to the top 6!

12. GrammaTech introduces architecture visualization system for CodeSonar (March 27^th)

11. LDRA forms LDRA Certification Services (March 26^th)

10. Enea joins the embedded Linux party (March 27^th)

8 and 9. Siemens and PTC expand their lifecycle management coverage through acquisitions (Siemens/LMS International: November 8^th, PTC/Servigistics: August 8^th)

7. General Dynamics acquires OK Labs (September 11^th)

6. Thales acquires SYSGO (November 15^th)

SYSGO joins the list of leading embedded/real-time operating systems vendors (Wind River, MontaVista Software, and QNX Software Systems) that has been acquired since the middle of 2009. As SYSGO’s VP of Marketing Jacques Brygier told our blog earlier this month, “SYSGO remains the same with just more financial backup to move forward. The company keeps its identity, management team, full staff, and offices. It is Thales’ willingness to let SYSGO decide its own growth strategy, including the choice of market segments Thales is not involved with.” We are not sure that Wind River and Green Hills Software are worried just yet, but if Thales holds true to this strategy for its new subsidiary, the competition could start heating up.

5. IBM announces Rational Engineering Lifecycle Manager (September 5^th)

As software continues to play a greater role in providing product differentiation and innovation, the convergence of ALM and PLM has become a particularly hot topic and an important business opportunity. RELM is the key element of IBM’s cross-domain integration strategy, and is designed to help engineering teams visualize, analyze, and organize engineering data and their relationships.

4. Coverity launches the Coverity Security Research Laboratory (January 24^th)

If I had to pick one main theme that best defined 2012, it would be security. The Internet of Things phenomenon has pushed the concept of security to the forefront of consumers’ minds, and as a result the engineering community has become increasingly focused on building security into their devices. To that end, Coverity launched its Security Research Laboratory (SRL), which is dedicated to vulnerability research and the discovery of new and existing defects in software code. SRL includes a wide range of security experts from industry and academia.

3. Oracle releases two new Java Embedded products (September 25^th)

As I wrote in September, survey data over the last several years has uncovered a surge in the use of Java in embedded designs. Oracle’s release of Java ME Embedded 3.2 and Java Embedded Suite 7.0 is indicative of the company’s recognition of this trend and its intent to aggressively target embedded developers. Also considering the momentum behind the Java-based Android platform, it certainly seems that 2013 may be the year of Java in embedded.

2. Microsoft unveils Windows Embedded roadmap (November 14^th)

The release of Windows 8, new Windows phones, and the Surface tablet brought with it a great deal of speculation around the future of Microsoft’s various Windows Embedded platforms. In mid-November, Microsoft finally revealed their plans, which, not surprisingly, included yet another naming convention change. A few highlights:

• Windows Embedded Standard 7 will become Windows Embedded 8 Standard (GA: March)
• Windows Embedded Enterprise will become Windows Embedded 8 Professional (GA: March)
• Windows Embedded POSReady will become Windows Embedded 8 Industry (CTP: January)
• Windows Embedded Compact 7 will become Windows Embedded Compact 2013 (GA: Q2 '13)
• More details on Windows Embedded 8 Handheld and Windows Embedded 8 Automotive are expected to be released early next year.

1. Intel rolls out the Intelligent Systems Framework (September 11^th)

Intel continued its heavy push into embedded at the Intel Developer Forum this past September, when it announced the Intelligent Systems Framework (ISF). Another announcement driven by the Internet of Things phenomenon, ISF is a broad specification for intelligent devices in a wide range of industries, from medical and industrial to digital signage and home automation. The framework is “designed to address connecting, managing, and securing devices and data in a consistent and scalable manner,” and includes hardware, operating systems, tools, and other software components.

There are two key reasons ISF earned the top spot in our rankings. First is the impressive list of companies that have pledged their support, which includes Advantech, Arrow Electronics, Avnet, Dell, Digi International, Eurotech, Kontron, and of course Intel subsidiaries McAfee and Wind River. The second – and perhaps more important – reason is simply the attention it has received. People are talking about it. People want to know more about it. In the short time since its release, we have fielded numerous calls from various industry participants looking to discuss ISF and how it may impact the industry moving forward. For those reasons, we believe Intel’s Intelligent Systems Framework was the most significant/noteworthy embedded software announcement of 2012.

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So that’s our list. And though we checked it twice, I am sure you all might have seen things a little bit differently in 2012. So if you’d like to dispute our rankings, point out something that didn’t make the list at all, or even shower us with praise, we would love to hear from you in the comments section.

Here’s looking forward to even more game-changing innovations for embedded in 2013 and beyond!

VDC’s Top 12 of 2012 – Part 1

The end of the year is always a great time for reflection, for thinking about everything that happened throughout the year and what it all means. It is also a great time for making lists; Christmas lists, New Year’s resolutions, and Best Ofs. I won’t get into my New Year’s resolutions here, but I will take a few moments to highlight (and rank, just for fun) the most significant embedded software announcements of the past year.

So, without further ado, here is our take on the best of 2012!

 

12. GrammaTech introduces architecture visualization system for CodeSonar (March 27^th)

This system is designed to optimize the visual inspection and analysis of software through a sophisticated new interface for viewing the relationships between software program elements. Built to handle very large code bases, we believe this product represents a unique solution that has the ability to materially impact the way developers test and analyze their source code. CodeSonar visualization runs through a browser such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome.

11. LDRA forms LDRA Certification Services (March 26^th)

Attaining safety-critical certifications has long been a time-consuming and laborious task for embedded developers. In response to this challenge, LDRA formed a separate division of the company (staffed by credentialed industry experts) dedicated to facilitating the certification process for various FAA/EASA regulations. LDRA addresses the following standards: Aircraft & Systems Development (ARP-4754A), Safety Assessment (ARP-4761), Integrated Modular Avionics (DO-297), Flight Electronic Hardware (DO-254), Flight Software (DO-178B/C), and Ground Systems (DO-278/A).

10. Enea joins the embedded Linux party (March 27^th)

This was a bit of an about-face for Enea, which had previously supported embedded Linux development through its services arm and reseller agreements with Linux vendors such as TimeSys. Enea Linux – which is intended to target next-generation networking infrastructure equipment – is a Yocto-based distribution available with customized services and support. This came on the heels of the release of another new commercial distribution, Mentor Embedded Linux (Mentor Graphics). The question for both Enea and Mentor, of course, is whether or not “late to the party” is good enough.

8 and 9. Siemens and PTC expand their lifecycle management coverage through acquisitions (Siemens/LMS International: November 8^th, PTC/Servigistics: August 8^th)

The complexity of today’s projects is increasing the dependence of each engineering discipline on the functionality of the other disciplines. The lines between software, electrical, and mechanical engineering have started to blur, necessitating a higher frequency of communication and coordination between these once separate groups. These acquisitions are further evidence that the concept of developing a cross-domain approach to providing solutions to this market has been one of the main overarching themes of 2012.

Siemens’ acquisition of LMS International will allow the company to extend their systems driven product development support through integrated test management, while Servigistics’ presence in PTC’s portfolio will enable PTC to better help its customers service their products under development.

7. General Dynamics acquires OK Labs (September 11^th)

According to GD, OK Labs will deploy its OKL4 Microvisor in secure mobile devices (for civilian, government, and military use) and automotive in-vehicle infotainment systems as part of the GD Broadband business unit – presumably within both internal and commercial opportunities. But will commercial opportunities actually be there? For years, suppliers of mobile hypervisors have struggled to effectively communicate the value proposition of their solutions. As a result, revenues never really scaled and leading vendors struggled to realize significant growth. In the case of OK Labs, this ultimately resulted in acquisition. Given the historical difficulties in monetizing mobile virtualization, we believe it may be only a matter of time before GD completely internalizes the use of OKL4 technology.

Part 2 on Wednesday!

Come back on Wednesday for the second half of this list, including our pick for the top announcement of the year!

The Embedded Software Beat

A Q&A with Paul Anderson, VP of Engineering, GrammaTech

This interview is the third in a series that we look to conduct during the course of 2012 with embedded software solution providers to share their views on their company, products, and state of the market.

VDC: GrammaTech has been in the source code analysis business for over 20 years; can you briefly introduce the company to our readers?

Anderson: We were founded as a spin-off from Cornell University to commercialize the results of research into interactive development environments. Since then we have done a lot of research into software analysis and manipulation. For the last five years or so our main product has been an advanced static analysis tool for C/C++. It does a whole-program path-sensitive analysis to find serious programming defects such as buffer overruns. We sell it mostly to companies doing embedded safety-critical work, but also to those doing serious security analysis.

VDC: What are the challenges engineers face today in designing and developing embedded devices and how are embedded software suppliers responding?

Anderson: For years we have been able to rely on increased clock speeds and integration to get better performance. That trend is running out of steam, so chip designers have turned to multiple cores to improve throughput. The problem is that developers usually need to rewrite their code to take maximum advantage of the potential. Writing efficient concurrent code requires new skills, and this introduces the risk of entirely new classes of programming defect such as deadlocks and data races. These are usually very difficult to detect and diagnose because they are highly sensitive to minute differences in timing. Dynamic analysis tools are beginning to emerge that can help with detection and diagnosis, and static-analysis tools can be used to prevent them from being introduced in the first place.

VDC: You recently announced CodeSonar for Java. Can you briefly describe this product and talk a little bit about the use of Java in embedded systems today?

Anderson: Java is a much more civilized language than C/C++ — a bug like a buffer overrun in C is potentially disastrous because it corrupts the memory in unpredictable ways, but the same bug in Java will trigger a well-defined exception that can be handled in a controlled manner. On the other hand Java programmers make much heavier use of general-purpose APIs and frameworks and it is possible to introduce bugs by misusing these. Consequently for Java there is less need for the sophisticated and expensive analysis needed for C programs. Our first version of the Java product does a fairly lightweight analysis, but the results are still managed through the same web-based user interface used for the C/C++ product.

In embedded systems development C is usually used for the embedded processors themselves, and Java (or other languages like C#) is most often used for the non-safety- or performance-critical components such as the desktop or handheld computers used to manage the devices.

Of course Java is the language primarily used for Android development for devices such as mobile phones and tablets, but such development has more in common with traditional data processing or UI programming than embedded programming.

It would be great if there were more of a move towards Java for real-time embedded, and there are some very good tools available, but it does not appear to be happening very fast. C and C++ will be with us for the foreseeable future.

VDC: Device security, which has long been an area of expertise for GrammaTech, has become a very buzzworthy topic in recent months. What are some of the vulnerabilities and other security issues that engineers need to guard against as they seek to develop secure devices in this increasingly connected world?

Anderson: Researchers have demonstrated that it is relatively easy to take control of many embedded devices. I recently saw a presentation that showed a successful attack on the control computer of an automobile that was launched by inserting an infected disk into the CD player. The attack surface of many devices is growing rapidly because of market demands for increasing connectivity. Nobody should assume that their devices are unlikely to be targets of attacks. Hackers can be incredibly creative at finding ways to exploit vulnerabilities for their own ends.

Consequently it is becoming clear that all embedded developers must be aware of security risks and that they should program to avoid them. Fortunately there are lots of publicly-available resources to help programmers understand security vulnerabilities.  For example, the CWE/SANS Top 25 lists the most notorious programming defects that can lead to exploitations.

After getting educated and adopting the appropriate tools, the most important thing that developers can do is to cultivate the correct mindset. They should assume that their software will be scrutinized for vulnerabilities by extremely talented and determined adversaries, and program accordingly. It is most critical to pay attention to the interfaces between systems as this is where most weaknesses lurk.

VDC: GrammaTech is also heavily involved in cutting-edge research.  What can you tell us about some of your recent or ongoing research efforts?

Anderson: We work on various program analysis tools and techniques including static and dynamic analysis for both source code and object code, with applications in software assurance, security and protection. One project is aimed at protecting users from potentially malicious code by monitoring it during execution and preventing it from doing harm. A related project combines static and dynamic techniques to do a sort of intelligent fuzzing to automatically generate test cases that yield very high code coverage.

VDC: If you were to take a look a look into your crystal ball, how do see the opportunities for the embedded software market shaping up as we head toward 2013?

Anderson: I have already mentioned two major trends: concurrency and security; demand for tools to help with these aspects of development will probably increase. The use of Eclipse— the open-source IDE — is growing rapidly; it has been the dominant IDE for Java for years, and support for C/C++ is now mature. It integrates tightly with debuggers, profilers, version control systems, and other tools so it can boost programmer productivity enormously. I would expect tool-chain vendors to improve their integration with Eclipse to take advantage of this great resource.

VDC: Thank you Paul.

Interested in participating in VDC’s “The Embedded Software Beat” series of interviews? Please reach out and let us know.

Paul Anderson is VP of Engineering at GrammaTech. He received his B.Sc. from Kings College, University of London and his Ph.D. in computer science from City University London. Paul manages GrammaTech's engineering team and is the architect of the company's static-analysis tools. He has helped a wide variety of organizations, including NASA, the FDA, the FAA, MITRE, Draper Laboratory, GE, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing, apply automated code analysis to critical projects. Paul has worked in the software industry for 16 years, with most of his experience focused on developing static-analysis, automated-testing, and program-transformation tools. A significant portion of his work has involved applying program analysis to improve security. His research on static analysis tools and techniques has been reported in numerous articles, journal publications, book chapters, and international conferences.

 

DESIGN East Bulletin – Part 2, Meetings Wrap-up

As mentioned in Part 1 of our DESIGN East Bulletin, VDC attended the 2012 DESIGN East Conference in Boston from September 17^th through the 19^th. We met with a wide range of companies to discuss product announcements and a variety of industry trends impacting the embedded market today. Among the most prominent industry trends we observed at this year’s show is the momentum behind Intelligent Devices, M2M connectivity, and the Internet of Things. Device security, which is heavily tied to each of these topics, was also a major point of conversation in many of our meetings.

Yesterday we noted our Embeddy award winner, Parasoft, and its Open Embedded Testing Platform, which provides integration of open source or 3^rd party tools into an organization’s software development lifecycle. The following is a round-up of the remainder of our meetings.

 

WALKING THE FLOOR

AdaCore announced that Rockwell Collins had selected AdaCore’s SPARK Pro and GNAT Pro High-Security products in the development of SecureOne Guard. SecureOne Guard is a high assurance cross domain guard for military tactical systems, and has strict requirements for reliability and security. Also, AdaCore’s Director of Language Research, Tucker Taft, presented a paper, “Ada 2012 – New Language Technology for High-Integrity Software” at the show.

aicas celebrated the shipment of the 400,000^th unit of its JamaicaCAR framework. The company also announced a 64-bit multicore JamaicaVM toolchain for VxWorks, QNX, and Linux.

GrammaTech announced CodeSonar 3.8, the first version of their static analysis tool to incorporate CodeSonar’s software architecture visualization. This update of the CodeSonar product takes advantage of multicore processors by parallelizing the analysis engine to significantly increase analysis speed with fewer false positives. In response to the growing popularity of Java code in embedded systems, GrammaTech also announced CodeSonar for Java. This tool works on all Java code, including code written for Android.

Green Hills Software made two key announcements at this year’s show. The company received a number of functional safety certificates for its MULTI toolchain, signifying its certification to meet the qualifications specified in the IEC 61508:2010 (industrial), EN 50128:2011 (railway), and ISO 26262:2011 (automotive) standards. Green Hills also released version 2012.5 of the Green Hills Compiler toolchain, which features out-of-the-box support for several new Freescale Qorivva and QorIQ processors.

IAR Systems announced it has ported Embedded Workbench to the Renesas RH850, a next generation automotive microcontroller. This announcement further establishes IAR’s longstanding collaborative relationship with Renesas.

IBM Rational Software highlighted Rational Rhapsody 8.0 and Rhapsody Design Manager 4.0. These solutions assist engineers to simplify safety-critical design using certification assistance to meet compliance standards such as AUTOSAR and UPDM.

The Intelligent Systems group at Intel shared details of its newly released Intel Intelligent Systems Framework. The framework is an evolving set of interoperable solutions designed to enable connectivity, manageability, and security across devices in a consistent and scalable manner. Included are validated components from Dell, Kontron, McAfee, Wind River, and others, with additional products expected to be validated in the coming months.

LDRA announced two new tools, LDRAcover and LDRArules. LDRAcover is a stand-alone code coverage analysis tool used to ensure complete testing for the improvement of overall code quality or achieve needed levels of verification in safety-critical markets. LDRArules is a configurable programming rule checker. This stand-alone product allows companies to select and adhere to relevant industry programming standards.

MathWorks highlighted the newest releases of MATLAB and Simulink. Released in the week prior to the show, the release (2012b) offers significant updates to the navigation and usability of both tools. Among the notable changes to Simulink is an overhauled user interface with tabbed model windows and an Explorer bar for navigating model hierarchy. Major changes to MATLAB include the introduction of the MATLAB toolbar displaying commonly used features and an overhaul of the apps gallery.

Micriµm and Renesas announced that Renesas RX and RL78 customers can now get a free, single production license for Micriµm’s µC/OS-II/III operating system as well as middleware and a year of support and maintenance from Micriµm at no cost. This promotion will run through March 31^st, 2013.

Segger Microcontroller released a complete evaluation package (including embOS, emFile, and emWin) for the Freescale TWR K70 development board.

Texas Instruments received the Embeddy Award for the hardware category for their Hercules RM46x ARM Cortex-R4 safety microcontroller. This controller was part of an accompanying SafeTI design package which also included a new SafeTI ARM Compiler Qualification Kit to help developers in industries with safety requirements.

Vector Software announced a partnership with AdaCore to provide advanced dynamic and static testing capabilities for Ada software developers. The company also highlighted the integration of the industry standard Lint analysis engine into VectorCAST/C++.

Other leading embedded systems exhibitors included Arium, ARM, Change Vision, Connect Tech, EBSnet, Freescale, Lauterbach, Macraigor Systems, Microchip, National Instruments, STMicroelectronics, and many, many others.

 

ABOUT VDC RESEARCH GROUP

VDC Research Group (VDC) provides market research and advisory services to the world's top technology executives. Our clients rely on us to provide actionable insights to support their most important strategic decisions. The firm is organized around four practices, each with its own focused area of coverage including: automatic identification and data collection, embedded hardware, embedded software and enterprise mobility.

Our market research is the basis for the many ways that VDC can help our clients to grow their business. We offer a range of services designed to meet their specific corporate development, opportunity assessment and lead generation needs. Founded in 1971, the firm is located in the Boston area. Please visit our Web site at www.vdcresearch.com to learn more.

VDC has been providing embedded systems market intelligence for over 20 years.

Software Development Tools Market Update

Competitive Market Dynamics at Work

Recently published research by VDC Research Group continues to indicate the market for commercial standalone software development tools remains under pressure and challenged as a result of competitive market dynamics.

The embedded market has evolved since the early nineties when market players were compartmented and offered RTOSs or software development tools. Over time, players converged at the center, either through acquisitions and mergers, internal development or some combination of both, in offering a software solution that spans operating systems and tool chains. Regardless of the direction of convergence, the focus was on providing an integrated and supported solution from a single vendor.

Many operating system vendors offer integrated and optimized tools support for development of applications for their own platform offerings. Hardware and silicon suppliers have partnered with tools providers in the past to support clients, but this trend has been changing as these suppliers find value in bringing tool offerings in-house.  Lastly, open source solutions are popular with developers looking for low, no-cost development tools. These freely available solutions represent the baseline from which all tools vendors must be able to differentiate themselves.

VDC expects the challenge is further complicated by the anticipated decrease in use of in-house developed target operating systems, where standalone software development tools shipments have historically represented an important source of income for suppliers.

Tighter Integration - Coming to a Toolchain Near You?

Based on the growing volume and importance of software, it is relatively easy to understand why tighter integration across the software development cycle is becoming much more important. It is, however, only part of the equation.

Over recent years - the lines between software, electrical, and mechanical engineering have been gradually blurring, with each discipline’s functionality becoming increasingly dependent on the others. And in the same way that the traditional serial and siloed development processes have difficulty supporting today’s rate of software change and content creation, the complexity of today’s projects necessitates a higher frequency of communication and coordination between all project/product team members, across and between the various engineering disciplines.

So given that there are often cultures of conservatism in place within many embedded verticals, are OEMs responding and actually looking to change?

Well, when we asked engineers about their organizations’ plans to evaluate higher levels of cross engineering-domain integration, over ½ said that they had already looked into it or have an investigation planned. This equates to an increase of about 10 percentage points over last year when we asked the same question – which is substantial considering how slowly the embedded industry has historically changed.

The next question that comes up is around tooling - What is available today and what vendors are making the needed adjustments to their portfolios? 

In past blogs and reports, we have written about IBM's OSLC initiative and PTC's acquisition of MKS. This week, at their PLM Analyst event in Boston, Siemens made it clear that they are stepping up to the challenge via updates to their Teamcenter product. They even highlighted Ford's implementation that uses Teamcenter as their data integration hub for IBM ClearCase, Rhapsody, dSPACE, MathWorks Simulink, and Vector CANape, among others.

This lingering question, however, is what factor will prove more influencial on integration strategy over the long term - ALM vendors' advantage managing the exponential growth in SW content or PLM vendors' ability to tie these domains directly into manufacturing?

We will be exploring this topic in greater detail as part of our 2012 Software and System Lifecycle Management Tool research program in our volumen covering ALM/PLM Integration. In the mean time, please contact us, we would love to hear your thoughts and feedback.

Enterprise Mobile Application Security: It’s All About the App

A number of factors are contributing to the increasing importance of mobile application security within the enterprise. For one, the mobile enterprise application market is rapidly growing as businesses have increasingly rolled out aggressive mobile app development plans. Mobile device management (MDM) has proven effective in supporting bring your own device (BYOD) policies, but does not bring security and policy control directly to the enterprise app itself. To deliver effective, secure applications the enterprise must bring security to the application level while making the experience seamless to users.

Enterprise IT departments face a host of challenges when addressing mobile application security. They must secure apps on both managed and unmanaged devices while preserving the native user experience – a combination most modern security technologies cannot fully deliver, as each solution has its limits and drawbacks. Technologies such as virtual machines and sandboxes/containers divide the user experience and can have a huge impact on battery life. Integrated SDKs use API’s to add security to apps in development, but they cannot support pre-existing or developed apps. MDM systems focus on device level security and typically require an on-device agent.

However, some solution providers are still focused on delivering truly secure enterprise apps without these follies. Mocana Corporation, a provider of device management solutions and embedded security tools, has developed a unique and patent-pending technology that enables fine-grained security and usage policies within individual mobile apps. Mocana’s Mobile App Protection (MAP) security solution utilizes “Application Wrapping” to create self-defending applications, without the need to have access to the original source code, an SDK, or a separate agent on the device. 

Mocana’s MAP solution complements MDM infrastructure and effectively provides application-level security without influencing the user experience. “Wrapped” apps feature central policy management, FIPS 140-2 end-to-end encryption and eliminate open device-wide VPN. Only MAP protected apps, not the entire device, are granted VPN access to the enterprise network preventing malware and rogue apps from sharing a per-device VPN.

BoxTone, a global enterprise mobility management software and services provider, offers a similar product to Mocana’s MAP with its Automated Mobile App Management (MAM) solution. BoxTone’s MAM boasts app-level self-defending apps much like Mocana, but is also focused on managing the full app lifecycle.

Granting security at the app-level extends data access to a greater number of mobile devices and supports BYOD adoption. Solutions like Mocana’s MAP and Boxtone’s MAM complement existing MDM infrastructure making integration seamless, and justify extending investments already made in MDM. When it comes to enterprise mobile application security, it’s all about the app.

VDC investigates these and other security trends in our upcoming Voice of the Customer research program: Security and the Internet of Things. Please contact us for more information. VDC will also be in attendance today, June 27, at The Amphion Forum, an event focusing on the threats and opportunities presented by the unprecedented proliferation of connected devices, in Washington, D.C.

ALM/PLM integration, who's going to lead?

Complexity driving need for greater tool integration

The complexity of today’s embedded devices and systems has escalated across all industries, coupled with a growing requirement for connectivity and mobility. To meet these challenges, developers’ use of software and system lifecycle management (SSLM) tools has expanded across a broader range of challenges than the specific engineering tasks for which they were originally developed. To support this usage, many suppliers are shifting away from point solution offerings towards integrated platform/suite solutions addressing a broader portion of the software development lifecycle.

A need for cross-domain integration

As the growing level of system complexity elevates the value proposition and stimulates expanded functionality of SSLM tools, we believe that it is becoming increasingly critical for engineering organizations to identify new methods for managing overall system development, across different engineering domains.

We continue to be in discussion with numerous stakeholders around cross-domain integration. There is progressively more interest about enhanced integration and collaboration between different engineering disciplines from OEM and tool supplier communities.

Based on these discussions and our research, VDC believes the potential benefits of a greater level of cross-domain integration and collaboration include:

• Facilitation of collaboration across project and product teams.
• Centralize component change management.
• Improve visibility into and interpretation of project requirements, design, and status.
• Encourage wider recognition and reuse of all forms of an organization’s embedded intellectual property (IP).

 

Market looking for software suppliers to take the lead

Findings from VDC’s 2012 Software and System Development Survey indicate that not only are a large percentage of engineering organizations investigating integrations across multiple domains, but perhaps more importantly, the research suggests they will look to software vendors to lead this effort.

• 39% of engineering respondents to our survey selected Software/ALM vendor led integrations as most successful in enabling a potential integration, a greater number than those selecting Mechanical/PLM and Silicon design/EDA combined.
• Furthermore, over 72% of respondents investigating cross domain integrations are exploring a combination that includes software.

Leading vendors positioning solutions to address ALM-PLM integration

VDC believes the development of a cross-domain integration solution approach, such as ALM-PLM, is the logical next step for tool vendors who have developed platforms to support most or all of the software development lifecycle. Leading software vendors, such as IBM, PTC with their acquisition of MKS, and ANSYS with a planned acquisition of Esterel, have begun organic and acquisition-based expansions to position their solutions around cross domain integration. VDC believes further M&A activities are likely in the near term as these and other vendors look to fill in gaps in their tool-sets to better address cross-domain engineering integration.

More insight

For further investigation and discussion about these trends and others, please see our recently published report, Automated Test and Verification Tools, volume 2 of our 2012 Software & System Lifecycle Management Tools Market Intelligence Service. Please contact us for more information.