Jessica Schieve

Service-enabled gateways – The heart of the connected home

As we ring in the new year, 120,000+ people will descend on Las Vegas for the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show.  The drumbeat to promote the next hot mobile or consumer device, application, and technology, is in full swing.  The industry will be abuzz with press releases, product announcements, and new partnerships.  And, yes, Wind River is gearing up for CES too. If you want to chat with us, give us a shout and we can definitely make time. 

This year, Wind River and Mindspeed have teamed up to deliver a turnkey high-performance reference platform to speed the development of service-enabling gateways. Gateways are quickly becoming the control point to manage broadband content and services. They are truly becoming the heart of the connected home.

At the show, we'll be demonstrating our integrated hardware and software solution, which includes Wind River Linux with middleware and software technologies for TR069, DLNA, OSGi, VoIP and ZigBee. This software bundle has been optimized for Mindspeed’s C1000 packet processor. Customers can use this turnkey platform to build intelligent gateways that will enable multiple broadband services including home automation capabilities. You can check out our gateway solution on the show floor in the Mindspeed booth in the South Hall room #MP25822.  Or, you can request a private demonstration of the solution in our suite at the Las Vegas Hilton (Suite 1849/50/51).  If you visit with us in our suite, you can also get a demonstration of the latest solutions for Android-based mobile devices and automotive infotaintment systems.  Schedule a meeting with Wind River and learn more about what we’re showing at CES.  

See you in Las Vegas!

The Two Ends of the Developer Spectrum: Cool Apps and the Network

I just spent the day at the Intel Developer Forum, where I listened in on Renee James’ keynote address on the Intel user experience. The presentation covered many topics, but the two of most interest were Intel’s AppUp program and Wind River Network Acceleration Platform. At first glance, these two topics seem at opposite ends of the developer community, but they are actually very closely connected. 

On one side of the developer community is the AppUp program. AppUp is designed to enable the development of applications for mobile and other intelligent connected devices. These applications come in many shapes and forms: social media, video, gaming, and financial transactions, to name a few. They are all being developed to run on the Intel Atom processor. Many of the applications are being designed to leverage wireline and wireless broadband to the networks.

Now enter the other side of the Intel developer community: applications for the network infrastructure. All those bandwidth-intensive applications being developed through the AppUp program need the network to deliver their content reliably, securely, and at lightning speed. This is where AppUp meets Wind River Network Acceleration Platform.

On main stage today, Ms. James highlighted a major breakthrough in packet processing performance. Utilizing a new packet processing paradigm, Wind River Network Acceleration Platform, running on Intel Xeon processors, can deliver 10.5 million packets per second per core. Even better, this unmatched packet acceleration solution scales linearly across all cores. This means ultrafast performance to deliver all that content developed by the AppUp applications.  

Check out this animation from today’s presentation.

Coming full circle, the main stage presentation on the Intel user experience shined a spotlight on two opposite ends of the developer community: end user application development and the network applications that will deliver the ultimate connected user experience. 

When it comes to multi-core, it takes a village

Telecom and Network equipment providers are facing huge challenges to build and deploy products that can meet the growing performance and capacity demands while also delivering the service levels customers have come to expect.  In the rapidly evolving wireless and wireline broadband markets, multi-core technologies have become a tremendous force that is impacting the entire value chain of industry suppliers (the village) and how it is responds to meet these challenges.

Wind River and LSI’s village just got bigger, stronger, and smarter.  Today, Wind River and LSI announced a long-term strategic collaboration to optimize and tightly integrate their multi-core hardware and software portfolios.  LSI’s Axxia Communication Processors will be integrated with Wind River’s industry leading Linux and VxWorks platforms and development tools. Now, equipment providers can leverage this collaboration effort as a powerful advantage to build faster, more intelligent, and highly competitive network products.

When it comes to multi-core, the true power and value is realized when the village works together to deliver scalable solutions that solve tough problems. 
Watch this video of Wind River and LSI executives discussing multi-core technologies and the importance of collaboration. 

Do you have a tough network challenge you need to solve?  Check out the strength of Wind River's partner village.

My Top 8+ Tweets From The 2010 Embedded Systems Conference

I just spent the last four days in San Jose at the 2010 Embedded Systems Conference.  If you are in the embedded industry this is a one-stop event to find information, products, and assistance to help with your next project.  I attended sessions, walked the show floor, talked to vendors about new products, met with partners, and discussed emerging trends with Editors.  I was so busy I actually didn’t have time to tweet about all the great things I saw.  Instead, I’ve compiled a list of the top 8+ tweets I intended to send but I just couldn't condense my thoughts down to 140 characters.

1. Wow – I actually saw lines to get into some of the sessions.  The economy must be getting better because the Embedded Systems Conference had a good turnout from both exhibitors and attendees.  I met with one of the show organizers who told me paid attendance was up 30%.   New and existing projects are on the move and people are looking for embedded technologies to help get their products to market.  Social media was heavily used by the event promoters to get the word out.
2. Multi-core is a hot topic.  There were several specific multi-core events that drew big crowds.  Wind River was involved in three multi-core specific events on day one.  All three events generated a lot of interest.
   
   • First, Wind River hosted an executive luncheon and multi-core panel featuring the six leading semiconductor companies: Cavium, Freescale, Intel, LSI, NetLogic, and Texas Instruments.
     These guys went head-to-head discussing why their approach is best.  One clear message from all the panelists was that optimized software and tools play a major role in realizing the full potential of multi-core processors.  Too bad we ran out of time because the audience was fired up with questions.
   • The luncheon was followed by a keynote from Wind River’s CTO, Tomas Evensen.  Tomas’ presentation - Surviving the Software Avalanche: Simplifying Multi-core – Everyone from the luncheon must have followed Tomas over to the Hilton because this session attracted a lot of people wanting to learn more about emerging embedded software and tools.
   • During the afternoon Wind River’s multi-core expert, Mark Hermeling, conducted a four hour working session on Multi-core Demystified.  This interactive session was packed.  The audience was very curious about the different elements to multi-core development.  Many questions were asked and answered.  What’s amazing is that the majority of the audience stayed the entire four hours.
3. Integrated solutions are in demand.  Piecing things together is NOT what the industry wants to do anymore.  The introduction of multi-core has made development of embedded systems much more complex.  On the first day of the show Wind River announced a new integrated multi-core runtime platform, the Network Acceleration Platform . The platform offers all the software components needed to develop a network element that delivers ultra-fast packet forwarding capabilities.    I had a number of people comment that this was exactly what the industry needs.
4. System simulation is generating a lot of interest.  A few weeks ago Wind River added the Virtutech Simics product to its portfolio.  Multiple hardware vendors stopped by the booth to get a hands on demo.  At times the audience was three groups deep.  As embedded systems get more complex, more and more designs will be done in a simulated or virtual environment.  Imagine the flexibility and added freedom to design the next generation applications without being tethered to physical hardware.
   
5. Ecosystem alliances are on the move – a number or companies announced new ecosystem alliances.  Freescale jumped out of the gate by announcing a new strategic alliance that expands software solutions on their processors.  They were followed by NetLogic’s announcement of Ensemble, an alliance to drive multi-core innovations around their processors.  These alliances tie directly to the above point that integrated solutions are what customers are asking for.
6. Xilinx is on a roll.  They started by winning top honors in the annual EDN Innovation Awards. Then they then unveiled a new ARM-based processing architecture that offers high-performance processing horsepower at lower cost and power targeting multiple market segments.  I talked to some of the Xilinx folks about there new project and left thinking – wow - these guys are on to something! 
7. Me Too Android!  Android is attracting a lot of interest.  Wind River hosted a webinar last week that attracted over a 1000 people. No wonder some embedded software vendors are just now jumping in with “me too” solutions.  Although not heavily pushed at this year’s ESC, there were a few companies attempting to put a stake in the ground with Android integration services.
8. Express Logic Monkeys are still the best giveaways.  It’s amazing.  Every year Express Logic gives away stuffed monkeys to anyone and everyone who sits through their presentations.  It blows me away that so many people, year after year, make getting one a priority. On the other hand, maybe Express Logic is on to something.  They announced over 750 million ThreadX deployments.  They are obviously doing something right.  

These 8+ non-tweets are just a few takeaways from the conference.  Did you make it to this year’s event?  Did you at least follow it online? What were your highlights?

A good user experience goes well beyond the cool device in your hand

As thousands of people converge on Mobile World Congress the hype will be on the latest and coolest devices that will connect to the next generation wireless broadband network.  People will be in awe of the newest “thin as paper” notebooks and the “do everything” smartphones.  Device Manufacturers and Service Providers will demonstrate killer video and data applications running every kind of mobile device your can imagine.  But to win the mindshare and pocketbook of the Consumer takes more than cool gadgets.  It requires delivering the best user experience possible.   And, the expectation is not only that these devices look cool and do cool things, but they will also do everything promised at breakneck speed. 

Far away from the device in your hand is the network that processes, routes, and delivers every call, chat, email, or packet of data you send.   The equipment in the network: access points, base stations, node controllers, gateways to name a few, can make or break the user experience.  The growing expectation of the network is that it will always be on, will always make your voice call, will deliver video uninterrupted, and will do it all without any delays.

As most of the visitors to Mobile World Congress give their attention to the awesome device eye candy, the real cool story are the announcements about the latest and greatest multicore hardware and software technologies being developed for to improve the performance of network equipment.  3G and 4G networks are quickly adopting multicore technologies to increase network packet processing performance and to enable better scalability to handle the increasing broadband demand and multimedia traffic.  Multicore technologies are rapidly becoming the standard foundation for the next generation of network equipment delivering greater performance and ultimately a better user experience. 

At this year’s Mobile World Congress, look for multicore announcements from all the leading hardware vendors: Cavium, Freescale, Intel, LSI, and NetLogic.  And be sure to check out the announcement Wind River made about its multicore virtualization support made earlier this week. If you are planning to use multicore technologies in your next network product, be sure to read the Multicore Checklist for Success.

A Very Unscientific Survey on the Future of WiMAX and LTE

I recently spent an afternoon at the 2009 4G World Conference held in Chicago. This was a rather small conference on a very big topic. There were a variety of vendors on hand exhibiting their wares: antennas, microwaves, connectors, and even complete end-to-end 4G systems. Some of the leading telecom equipment providers were showing their latest gear: Alcatel-Lucent, Alvarion, Motorola, Nokia-Siemens, Samsung, WiChorus, and ZTE.  Notably not present in any comparable way were Cisco, Huawei and Ericsson.

Motorola, a huge investor in WiMAX, was showcasing everything from infrastructure gear to new CPE devices. It had on display a new network-connected smart meter based on WiMAX technology, and I've included a photo of the device below.

Other non-traditional gear included WiMAX-based health monitors on display in the Samsung booth. As wireless broadband networks deploy, we’ll be seeing many new applications and devices taking advantage of this new connectivity opportunity.

Most of the equipment providers were showing both WiMAX and LTE (Long Term Evolution) technology solutions. Developing equipment for both technologies requires a significant investment. The challenge equipment providers face is how to place their bets and where to allocate their resources for the biggest reward. The good news for equipment providers is they can standardize on a common carrier grade open software platform as the foundation for building network gear for both 4G wireless technologies. Many of the leading equipment provides, including some of the companies mentioned previously, are building both WiMAX and LTE equipment based on Wind River’s Carrier Grade Linux and VxWorks software solutions.

Now for the survey. As I visited with representatives from each of the equipment provider companies, I asked one question: In the next five years, which technology, WiMAX or LTE, will have the most base stations shipped? LTE was the winner by far. Some guessed 90% of the base stations shipped would be LTE and 10% WiMAX. The most conservative estimate put LTE at 60% and WiMAX at 40%. This estimate came from one of the big traditional equipment providers that has hedged its bet with investments in both LTE and WiMAX.

Why will LTE overwhelmingly win the base station race? The primary reason is because LTE wireless technology will accommodate the hundreds of millions of mobile telephone subscribers already in existence. And most, if not all, major global carriers have announced plans to convert their networks to LTE. However, most survey respondents agreed there will be an opportunity for both wireless technologies to coexist.

So what’s you’re prediction?  Will LTE dominate the 4G landscape?  Can the companies that made big bets on WiMAX early on parlay their investments into LTE?

Carrier Grade Starts with Finding and Fixing Software Defects Before Deployment

Did you know 25% to 50% of deployed device failures are due to software defects? This statistic should be nowhere near this high, considering there are a few very good solutions out there today to help reduce the number of defects in software code.

In the networking and telecom industry, if equipment fails and brings down the network it can cost a service provider or operator millions of dollars in lost revenue or even lost customers (read this white paper to learn more). If you are an equipment provider and the failure is associated with your application, the lost revenue cost could very well be passed on to you. And count on the network failure to be all over the headline news like the one that hit the New York Times.

To prevent these kinds of failures many equipment providers build carrier grade features and functionality into their products. Equipment with "carrier grade" characteristics can achieve 99.999% (five nines) availability. Putting this in terms we all understand, carrier grade equipment experiences less than three minutes of downtime per year. Non-carrier grade equipment can experience anywhere from 30 to 300 minutes of downtime per year.   This is a huge difference.

One of the key characteristics of a carrier grade network element is reliability. Increased application reliability can be achieved through tools that help to identify and debug software defects in network elements and applications before they deploy in the field.  Check out this demo of the Wind River Test Management solution.

Do you build carrier grade equipment?  What steps do you take to ensure your equipment or applications are highly reliable?  How much of your development process is spent on testing software? Do you use automated software testing tools? 

Partner Validation Program Tackles Networking and Telecom Equipment Provider Business Issues

Networking and telecom equipment providers often struggle with three common business issues:

• Meeting time-to-market windows
• Saving R&D resources and dollars
• Developing products that can compete on a global scale 

Finding a solution to tackle one of these issues is of great value. Wouldn’t it be even better if there was a solution that addressed all three? 

That solution is the Wind River Partner Validation Program.

Wind River has a reputation in the device software industry for having one of the deepest and broadest partner ecosystems. Today there are well over 300 different hardware and software partner companies that make up this ecosystem.  The Wind River Partner Validation Program takes a sliver of this ecosystem and focuses on the top one or two software companies offering a commercial solution in a critical technology category within the networking and telecom market. The software partners in the program have agreed to preintegrate and validate their technology components with Wind River VxWorks and/or Wind River Linux runtime platforms.  

Network and telecom equipment providers who utilize a validated software ecosystem can significantly reduce the integration and quality assurance (QA) effort related to using commercial technologies.  Project teams can also free up a tremendous amount of engineering time and resources to focus on product competitiveness. And, project leaders can have peace mind knowing they can get the support and assistance they need from this tight ecosystem.

The companies in the Wind River Partner Validation Program include the following:

6WIND:  6WINDGate complete, embedded networking software including fast path, slow path, and control plane for multicore-based designs
Continuous Computing: Trillium 3G, LTE, femtocell gateway, and SS7/SIGTRAN protocol software, offering a complete standards-based control plane stack implementation
GoAhead Software: SAFfire high availability and management middleware, the leading implementation of the Service Availability Forum open specifications
Oracle: Berkeley DB, a transactional embedded data manager and Times Ten, a real-time in-memory database
RADVISION: SIP Developer Suite, a highly versatile set of tools to accelerate SIP application development
Tail-f Systems: ConfD, an on-device configuration management solution for network equipment

We’ve identified six key technology areas from the leading commercial providers.  What other third-party software components are needed? Are you using a software component from someone not on the list? What software gap do you need to fill? Take our survey and enter for a chance to win a $100 gift card.

Watch out blade server market – here comes ATCA!

This past week I attended the Light Reading ATCA & Communications Ecosystem Conference in San Jose, CA. This live event attracted about 120 people including ATCA system developers, ecosystem vendors, and consortia. Here is a quick list of the companies I recognized at the event:

• TEMs/NEPs – Ericsson, Nokia-Siemens, Nortel, Stoke Networks, Cisco
• Vendors – Continuous Computing, Emerson Network Power, Enea, GoAhead, Intel, Kontron, RadiSys, Wind River
• Consortia members – CP-TA, Linux Foundation, PICMG, OpenSAF, SAForum, SCOPE Alliance
  (check out Glenn Seiler's blog on the Telecom Consortia Alphabet Soup)

The event was somewhat low-key, probably a reflection of the economic times. However, the content was great. ATCA has been deploying for a few years now. The market has been picking up steam as more networks move to an all IP infrastructure.  We can thank the acceleration of smartphones and mobile internet devices (MID) for fueling the demand.  And, by the looks of it, this market will continue to grow as equipment providers begin to design in Long Term Evolution (LTE) technologies.

There were a few great data points, especially related to the Server market. Here are my notes from the event:

• The ATCA market is projected to reach $6.8b by 2012.CAGR at 93% (courtesy of Earlswood Marketing, April 2009)
• Growth for ATCA-based equipment will require penetration into new areas of the network – perhaps the bladed server for network datacenters?! There were a few Cisco folks in the audience, any correlation?
• The 3G data plane market is exploding with the control plane remaining relatively fixed
• COTS system solutions are gaining ground on in-house designs.  It is estimated the split will be 50/50 by 2010. A few years ago we estimated 90% in-house, 10% COTS.
• The second generation of ATCA-based equipment is rolling out now. These are 10Gb systems with dual and quad core CPUs. They are used in wireline and wireless 3G/4G infrastructure equipment.
• The third generation of 40Gb/s ATCA-based equipment is in development. It will include CPUs with 8 or more cores
• Interoperability remains a challenge
• More needs to be done to further open architectures and open interfaces. This includes Carrier Grade Linux OSes and HA middleware
• Virtualization is important but there are challenges that still need to be overcome. Today the different components that make up an ATCA system are not ready for virtualization. ie: HPI
• Linux is the least common denominator operating system – Carrier Grade Linux is absolutely necessary to reach the 5-9s availability – there cannot be any weak links
• Hypervisors will become even more important, but they must be Carrier Grade
• A new opportunity to provide system integration to Service Providers is emerging. This will center around interoperability and integration services

Now that I did a huge data-dump, what are your thoughts? What does Cisco's entry into the server market mean for IBM Blade Center, HP and NOW Oracle/SUN? Why is Oracle entering the Server hardware market by acquiring SUN? Did IBM miss a big opportunity to keep Oracle out? Who will use ATCA as a competitive advantage? Shouldn't Carrier Grade performance be standard in Data Center servers to drastically reduce total cost of ownership and realize even greater availability? Check out this white paper on Carrier Grade Linux: High Service Availability for the Next-Generation Network (registration required).

Want to learn more about the ATCA market? Join Wind River at the MicroTCA Summit.

What’s going on with ATCA? Find out from the ecosystem!

What’s going on with the Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (ATCA) push into next generation networking?  Light Reading is expecting this market opportunity to reach $7.2 billion by 2012.  This growth is impressive.  Can it continue?  Is there another wave of growth coming?  Or, is the industry moving in another direction?  Who best to know.....the ecosystem.

When I first started following this industry there were well over 100 software and hardware technology companies working on the advancement and adoption of the ATCA standard.  These companies have formed an impressive ecosystem representing silicon, COTS boards, hardware components, carrier grade operating systems, high availability and network management middleware technologies, to name a few.

This ecosystem is the focus of a Light Reading’s The ATCA & Communications Ecosystems Conference, happening April 28^th, 2009, in San Jose.Many of the participants at this conference are the leading vendors in the ATCA ecosystem, including Wind River.Each of these companies will be sharing their perspective on the growth and the subtle changes going on in the industry. I’ll be attending and will be sure to follow up with my own perspective and some key takeaways.