1.
Software virtualization
lessons for extreme IoT
portability and scale
Vincent Perrier
Chief Product Officer, MicroEJ
vincent.perrier@microej.com

2.
About MicroEJ
• IS2T S.A. founded in 2004 – offices in France, Germany, USA
– $5M Series A funding in 2011 – $20M R&D total investment
– http://www.microej.com/about
• Independent Software Vendor, global player in the IoT industry
– Licenses: embedded (tools & runtime) + cloud (store)
– Professional services, training & consulting
• Expertise in embedded, virtualization,
software engineering & processes
• Partnerships with key IoT, silicon,
embedded SW and HW vendors, EMS,
clouds
8 June 2016 2© MicroEJ

3.
IoT Business Trends
• Manufacturing imposes using industrial-grade components
• Large production volumes (billions of devices) impose low product cost
• Battery-operated devices impose low power consumption
• Internet pace imposes shorter time-to-market
• Smartphones and tablets set new user experience expectations for
consumer products
• IoT business model is likely to evolve from device-centred (retail business)
to services-centred (operator business) to data-centred (BI)
Revenues from device (electronic product) sales
< Revenues from subscriptions to web-based services delivered through devices
< Revenues from data streams delivered by devices Time/IoT maturity
8 June 2016 3© MicroEJ

4.
IoT Technical Challenges
• Interoperability with cloud infrastructure implies IP-based networking
– Directly on edge node device, or through a gateway – for interfacing with cloud servers
• Embedded constraints
– Fragmented processor architectures and low-level HW-dependant SW (HdS) & tools
– Limited resources: memory, storage, computing, bandwidth, battery life…
– Diversity of connectivity links, wired & wireless
– Interfacing to the physical world (sensors & actuators, analog & digital…)
• Architecture choices on silicon integration of main hardware functions
– Computing, memory (RAM), storage (flash), connectivity (RF, wired), data collection (I/Os)…
– On-chip or on board: MPU, MCU, SoC, modules (comms, sensor), ASIC, components…
• Value is delivered by software
– Communication protocols, user interfaces, manageability, scalability, data & services…
• IoT is not Arduino, nor Linux on Raspberry Pi, nor Android on dual core GHz processors
8 June 2016 4© MicroEJ

5.
Embedded Devices
• SMART devices need to be able to acquire, compute and store data, and perform several tasks
– Peripherals, processors (MCU, FPU, DSP), RAM, flash…
• CONNECTED devices need to support many connectivity, communications and security standards
– Physical/Link: 802.15.4, 868-902 MHz, 802.11, Bluetooth, cellular 2G/3G/4G…
– Network/Transport: Wi-Fi, 6LowPAN, TCP/UDP-IP, TLS/DTLS, ZigBee, Z-Wave…
• INTERACTIVE devices provide graphical and touch interface
– Graphical User Interface (GUI), Human-Machine Interface (HMI)
• MANAGED devices allow software content update and operations management from the Cloud
– Over-The-Air (OTA) firmware update
– Device Management (DM)
• May use proprietary communication protocols over standard links
– Sensors, actuators, I/Os (GPIO, PWM, DAC/ADC, USB, I2C, SPI, UART…)
– Internet client/server (sockets)
8 June 2016 5© MicroEJ

6.
IoT Devices
• Should use standard communication protocols over standard links
• IoT devices use standard-based frameworks and agents for communicating
with each other and connecting to services in the cloud that provide
software content and operations management
– WebSocket, TLS, HTTPS REST…
– Thread, AllJoyn, DDS, XMPP, AMQP, MQTT, CoAP, LWM2M…
• They leverage data streams and formats for cloud-based analytics
– XML, JSON…
• SCALABLE devices may run multiple applications that can be dynamically
downloaded and installed/uninstalled (without FW update)
– User experience similar to smartphones/tablets = application store
8 June 2016 6© MicroEJ

7.
IoT Edge-to-Cloud
8 June 2016 7© MicroEJ
HW
SW
GUI
Data Analytics
Sensors
Data Y
DM X Third-Party
Agents
Apps GWY IoT Cloud
Platform Y
IoT Cloud
Platform X
Application
Store
Download Device
Management
Connect

8.
Device
B
Device
A
IoT Non-Portability & Scale
?
8 June 2016 8© MicroEJ
Cloud
Y
Cloud
X
Cloud
Z
Device
C
Combination of clouds and protocols: HTTPS, REST, MQTT, CoAP, LWM2M…
Combination of: ISA, compilers, RTOS, libraries (FS…), stacks (TCP-UDP/IP, TLS/DTLS…)

9.
• Embedded C/RTOS solutions have
efficiently addressed SW bring-up on
fragmented hardware by providing
vertical integration layers for each
combination (ISA/compiler/libs)
• But they may require integration
work for the BSP and native libraries
• They may not provide ready-to-use
solutions for enabling IoT and cloud-
ready SW capabilities
• Applications still need to be ported
from one vertical silo to another,
further fragmenting developer
communities
Vertical Integration
8 June 2016 9© MicroEJ

10.
• The MicroEJ® Operating System leverages
the best of both worlds:
– The scalability of embedded RTOS
solutions for SW bring-up
– The large community of mobile & PC
developers for efficient SW
applications development
• It provides APIs both for BSP/RTOS/libs
integration and SW app development
• It enables horizontal integration of OS
services thanks to a virtualization layer that
isolates application layers from
lib/RTOS/BSP/compiler/ISA layers
Horizontal Integration
8 June 2016 10© MicroEJ

11.
IoT Portability & Scale
8 June 2016 11© MicroEJ
Cloud
Y
Cloud
X
Cloud
Z
Device
A
Device
B
Device
C
Combination of clouds and protocols: HTTPS, REST, MQTT, CoAP, LWM2M…
Combination of: ISA, compilers, RTOS, libraries (FS…), stacks (TCP-UDP/IP, TLS/DTLS…)
MicroEJ OS
A
N
Y
A
N
Y
Reusable SWReusable SW
Reusable SWReusable SW

12.
HW Virtualization
ADVANTAGES HOW:
Hardware independence
• True Portability of BINARY SW across HW (no
recompilation needed)
Micro-Virtualization layer (30KB)
• Formal Separation between HW-dependent-SW and
HW-independent-SW
Safe SW programming & execution Build & runtime checks, Sandboxing
Full set of SW foundation blocks High-level API & stacks
Secured investments
• Legacy code integration
Multi-language support: Java, C/C++, ASM
Future-proof
• SW updates
• New SW downloads
Multi-application framework
• Build-time configuration
• Run-time add-ons
8 June 2016 12© MicroEJ

13.
MicroEJ OS
Platform
OPERATING SYSTEM
BSP/DRIVERS
TARGET HARDWARE
APPLICATIONS
APP 1 APP 2 APP 3 APP 4 …
CORE
Secure Multi-Application Engine
CORE
Memory Management
CORE
Languages/Utilities/Test
CORE
CPU & Power Management
CORE
Components Management
IO
Sensors/Actuators/GPIO
COMM
Connectivity Wired/Wireless
STORE
Application Management
NUM
Numerical Methods
FILE & DATA
Persistence/File System
GUI
Graphics/Touch
NET & SEC
Network Protocols & Security
IOT
IoT/Cloud Middleware
8 June 2016 13© MicroEJ

14.
MicroEJ OS Foundations
HW Foundations
• MCU/MPU/SoC architectures and
starter kits
– ARM Cortex M/A
– MIPS, RX, Power, TriCore…
SW Foundations
• Hardware-dependent Software
– Bare metal/any RTOS
– BSP, drivers, libraries
• Native SW SDKs
8 June 2016 14© MicroEJ

15.
MicroEJ Cloud Connections
Data Analytics
• HTTPS REST
• MQTT
• CoAP
• AMQP
Device Management
• LWM2M
• OMA-DM
• TR-069
8 June 2016 15© MicroEJ
IP
TCP UDP
TLS DTLS
SMS
CoAPMQTT
LWM2M

16.
MicroEJ OS Core
Secure multi-application engine
• Optimized virtual machine
• “Green thread” integration to RTOS
Languages, utilities & test
• Efficient Java-to-C native interface
• Test suite harness (for HW-in-the-loop testing)
• Performance traces
Memory management
• Smart RAM optimizer (garbage collector)
• Shared C-Java heap (immortal objects)
• Static objects in flash (immutable objects)
CPU & Power management
• Management of app permissions to access system resources
Components management
• Static and dynamic code loader, incremental
• Management of binary app lifecycle
• Sandboxing
8 June 2016 © MicroEJ 16
KEY FIGURES:
Soft Core (virtualization)
+ Smart RAM Optimizer
< 30 KB of Flash
Multi-app add-on < 10 KB of Flash
RAM footprint < 1.5 KB
Boot time < 2ms
on Cortex-M3 at 120 MHz
RTOS stack size < 1KB

17.
Multi-App Sandboxing
Built OS defines set of API &
resources available to apps
• Can’t access directly to code, objects,
threads
• No (bypassing) native code call allowed
• No inter-dependencies between apps
• Fully managed in binary
• Install, uninstall, start, stop
HARDWARE
BSP (= DRIVERS + RTOS)
RTOS
Task 1
MicroEJ Task (“Green Thread”)
RTOS
Task 2
RTOS
Task n
MicroEJ CoreMemory Mgmt
Components Management
Resource Mgmt
Predictable Thread Scheduler
MicroEJ Libraries
App
1
App
2
App
3
App
4
App
5
App
n
Downloaded
App
Isolation
Layer
Resident
8 June 2016 © MicroEJ 17

18.
Firmware Build
8 June 2016 18© MicroEJ

19.
Firmware & Apps Deploy
8 June 2016 19© MicroEJ

20.
MicroEJ Store
8 June 2016 20© MicroEJ

21.
End-to-End IoT
8 June 2016 21© MicroEJ
IOT DEVICES
SW CONTENT
MANAGEMENT
DEVICE
MANAGEMENT
DATA
ANALYTICS
GATEWAY
P
OS
STORE
OS
IOT
CLOUD PLATFORM
MicroEJ PartnersP

22.
OS for IoT
8 June 2016 22© MicroEJ
RTOS Linux
MPU (>$10 ASP)MCU ($1-6 ASP)
Volumes 75%
25%
SW Foundation

23.
Thank You
8 June 2016 23© MicroEJ
• General information
– www.microej.com
• MicroEJ SDK free evaluation for OEMs
– www.microej.com/get-started
• Free MicroEJ Studio for application developers
MicroEJ Application Store
– store.microej.com
• Developer resources (source, doc, examples…)
– developer.microej.com
• Contact us
– contact@microej.com
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