Webinar Slides: The OEM Secret to Launching New Devices Faster and Cheaper
With manufacturers continuously battling to find the balance between driving costs down while also satisfying consumer expectations, some OEMs in particular have stood out ahead of the rest. How do they do this, you ask? The answer is with virtualization technology, which brings new devices to market faster and cheaper, without sacrificing functionality and performance.
Virtualization technology has become many OEMs’ new secret strategy for gaining a competitive advantage and solving the business challenges associated with mobile phones and connected devices. Moreover, manufacturers in the mobile, automotive and M2M industries are enjoying the benefits of virtualization, which include faster time to market for new devices and services, increased security and isolation of critical functions, simpler migration to new platforms and reduced costs through better hardware utilization.
My name is Micha Rave, I am the director of Mobile Virtualization at Red Bend Software. I have been working in the mobile industry for over 10 years and I believe that mobile virtualization is a game changer for any device connecting to the mobile network.A few words about Red Bend Software. we have been in business for 15 years, our initial focus was on updating firmware over-the-air, otherwise know as FOTA.We have since added device management, analytics, software, management and mobile virtualization to our product and solution portfolio.We have shipped our products on over 1,300 device models from over 80 global customers on a total of 1.75 billion devices.These include not only feature phones, smartphone and tablets but also cars, trucks, vending machines, tractors, utility meters and others.Mobile virtualization products alone has shipped on over 75 million devices - more than all other competitors combined.On most of these devices, the user has no idea they are virtualized. Virtualization may not be something that you automatically think to add as a feature of your device, but today we are going to talk about how virtualization is solving real-world business challenges of some of the leading OEMs of all types of mobile and connected devices.
Mobile market is changing. Traditionally, smartphones are attributed to early adopters, highly paid professionals in the western world who have the latest and greatest high-end, expensive mobile devices.As the market matures, this functionality is becoming available for developing markets, but not at the same price. According to IDC average selling price is coming down from 443 $ in 2011 to as low as 372$ in 2013 with predictions of it dropping to $309 by 2017The very same process can is happening for the tablet ASP. Interestingly, some analysts attributed the drop in the tablet ASP to the pick up in the smaller tablets form factor (moving from 10” vs. 7”), as well as subsidiary by service giants like Amazon and Google. But the reason people is picking it up is because of the cost!However, the average selling price for car in the US has gone up – why? Because of the accessorizing and high trim-level. IVI and big screen are migratingfrom the high-end, expensive carstowards medium and lower priced cars. What we can see is that people are willing to pay extra for features such as screen, reverse camera and other high-tech features which drivers are used to from their smartphone experience. This is becoming part of the core value of cars as the slower, more traditional automotive industry is tracking the mobile one.http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24143513http://www.citeworld.com/tablets/21923/tablets-smaller-cheaper-everywherehttp://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2012/04/car-prices-hit-record/1#.Uk1Ru4bdfLw
Consumer demand for a richer user experience with more features and options have driven smartphone sales to account for 51.8 percent of mobile phone sales in the second quarter of 20131 according to Gartner. This is the first time that smartphones sales are over taking that of feature phone. People want more features and functionality, but expect reasonable prices.Smartphones growth in the past year was mostly attributed to developing countries, and mostly to medium to low-cost (100$-200$) phones, which means people expect more-for-less.This creates a new challenge for the manufacturers: how to offer device with advance functionality and connectivity with a low price point, while still maintaining margins in a highly competitive market.http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2573415http://www.cn-c114.net/578/a767748.html
But this is not just about mobile phones, the trend is about everything else.According to Cisco research group, by 2008, there are more “things” connected to the internet than people on earth.If you take a core product today and want to make it more interesting: add internet connected or modern UX, even allow your customers to add features – how do you do that without:effecting the quality of the existing productDisrupting the development process impacting time-to-marketImpacting product securityall by keeping an appealing low-price point being pressured by competition? We believe that the answer is virtualization!In essence, virtualization is the ability to run separate software stacks, each with separate features on a single HW thereby adding features and functionality while keeping the cost of the product down.http://share.cisco.com/internet-of-things.html
Lets take a brief look at the history of virtualization.The technology was first conceived by IBM in mid 60s and went though some evultion, before VMWare introduced their server virtualization solution for Intel platforms in 2001. The solution revolutionized the industry by enabling standard servers to run multiple OSs of different kinds, securely partitioned on a single hardware. This allows not only better CPU utilization, but also un-matched level of portability and manageability. Fast forward to today, you cannot imagine any of the most prominent modern cloud service including twitter, whatsapp and others running without the aid of server virtualization. The strategy has been used successfully in cloud and has effectively changed the market landscape, and now mobile and embedded devices are next in line to get the benefits it brings.
Users buy computing devices to use/run applications. You buy a phone to make calls and play angry birds. You buy an MP3 player to hear music.Role of OS is to get resources from HW to give to appsNow, the role of HW is to provide computing resources as directed by the OSThe goal of virtualization is to run multiple OSs on the same platform. This is achieved by running a small, but smart code just above the hardware that provide a scheduling mechanism and abstract some of the hardware resources such as CPU, or cores, MMU, timers and interrupt control.But virtualization is not only about the hypervisor and CPU sharing, it is also about:Enable some, or all OSs to use the device’s peripheralsSupport close-to-native performanceSecurely separate the OSsMinimize the disruption on the customer development processLet’s look at some of these challenges.
One of the biggest challenges is the device sharing.Modern consumer and mobile devices have dozens, and some time hundreds of peripherals.Hardware peripherals and software drivers are not designed to be shared. If more then one owner will attempt to control them, bad things will happen and the system will break.the solution is actually to have one OS physically responsible for the HW and provideperipherals access to additional virtual machines through back-end / front-end architecture.A good virtualization solution include not only an hypervisor, but also a comprehensive package of device sharing options supporting a wide range of system-on-chip on one hand, and relevant operating systems on the other while taking into consideration power management, performance, security and integration time.
There are multiple approaches to virtualization, all the way from application virtualization made famous by Java down to bare-metal hypervisors.One of the well established form of virtualization is referred to as type-I in which a Hypervisor (VMM) runs directly on the host's hardware and abstracts it at the lowest possible level so that guest operating systems need either small modifications, referred to has para-virtualization, which in modern processor families in not even mandatory.The Strengths of this approach:Close to native performanceReal time supportSupport for legacy stacksOS combinations are supported - each domain can have different OSMinimal or no intrusion at all with ARM VE architecture.Highly-secureWeaknessesHW dependency – hypervisor needs to be ported once to new type of platform and OS might need to be para-virtualizedIn order to be transparent, I would say that Red Bend, through its vLogix Mobile product, provides a type-I hypervisor and a set of virtual drivers supporting multitude of SoCs and Oses. As well as tools to extend the support for other OSs and custom SoCs.
Another common virtualization approach is known as type-II.In this approach, Hypervisors run within a conventional operating system environment. With the hypervisor layer as a distinctsecond software level, guest operating systems run at the third level above the hardware.The StrengthsNo HW-dependency, in theory, it can be downloaded like an app*. This claim does not hold in the practical world, since host adaptation are requiredWeaknessesSlower performance *Host kernel needs also major changes for performance improvements – OS dependencyPoor security – the host (consumer)kernel is protecting the hypervisorGuest Kernel needs major changes - OS dependencyDue to all the above weakness, the mobile industry has not adopted type-II virtualization, but has gravitated towards type-I or hybrid solutions sometime referred to as type-1.5, being less intrusive but suffers from the same weak points.
So lets take a look on some of the use-cases for mobile virtualization, and see how it can benefit various stake holders in the eco-system.Use Case #1- Lowering the cost of building smarter devices The developing market are looking to move to smartphones, but phones in the western world like Apple’s iPhone 5s and Samsung Galaxy S4 which retail for 650$ are far too expansive. Sweet spot for smartphones in china is 600 Chinese Yuan which approx. 100$.Existing multi processor based SoC cannot reach these price levels. A single core solution was the only way reduce BOM.OEMs and ODMs that wants to offer a such low-cost Android device face several options:Option 1: Port Android to run on RTOS or the RTOS to Android. Each alternative is complex in terms of development, testing and certification process. Nokia has tried this in early 2000, wasted several years and failed commercialy.Option 2: Add an Android dedicated ARM core,which of course directly conflicts with the cost reduction goalOption 3: Use hypervisor to run modem stack and Android on same SoCA leading semi-conductor applied virtualization to run Android and modem stack on single core SoC enabling Case study: Leading semi-conductor shipped 10 or millions of devices competing with global silicon vendors producing a price-sensitive product for development markets.
Use Case #2-Extending the investment in legacy software to new platforms Companies often choose to advance their products to newer platforms in order to facilitate price reduction or include new technology and new features. But it is necessary to retain legacy platform support and customer base and by avoiding migrating their investment in existing code and applications.Sierra Wireless, a US based machine-2-mahcine vendor wanted to add networking capabilities (in this case moving from 2G to 3G) to their legacy application execution environment without having their customers migrate their existing apps on to the new platform. They were, again faced by 3 options:Option 1: Port OpenAT to new 3G SoC stack, a costly, complex and time-consuming task and worst of all, forcing customer to migrate to a new environment thereby risking customer jumping ship.Option 2: Run OpenAT to a separate AP, which will add cost to the productOption 3: Use hypervisor to run 3G stack and OpenAT on same SoCSierra Wireless leveraged Red Bend’s Virtualization to enable the legacy Open-AT OS to run concurrently with Qualcomm AMSS-OS on a single core modem processor.
Automotive companies are becoming more and more aware of the importance of the technology-driven user experience inside the car. The car infotainment, navigation, telematics and rear-seat entertainment systems are becoming high-end computer systems that can be updated continuously with new applications and features, providing an opportunity for OEMs to offer new entertainment and safety services throughout the car’s lifetime. Paired with the fact that the car of tomorrow will be always be connected—to the Internet, to other cars and to roadside infrastructure—the need for additional computing power increases as does the dire need to properly isolate the open world systems from the car’s secure, mission-critical systems that control priority functionality, including the brakes and transmission.Virtualization satisfies these exact requirements. By using virtualization inside the vehicle, several high-end and low-end systems can be consolidated to run on the same hardware, eliminating unneeded miles of cabling and redundant hardware, thereby reducing fuel consumption, battery drainage and ultimately the car cost all while keeping the systems securely isolated.Red Bend has worked with a Japanese tier-I provider to integrate anIVIand DIC running securely separated on a single SoC retaining real-time functionality and rich, open, connected environment and feature set
As smartphones become the hub that manages our personal and work lives, the hardware that is powering them rapidly becomes as powerful as our desktop and laptop computers. This invites better technologies to enable trends such as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)that allow employees to use their own device for work.This can create huge headaches for IT managers that want employees to access corporate data and applications for productivity, but are afraid of the malware and other hazards brought by the personal open phone environment. First generation solutions attempted to protect the device by Enterprise Mobile Device Management (MDM) and container technologies, but these solutions handicap the user by lengthy lock screen pin codes and restricted use of applications, which result in user dissatisfaction and a decreased interest in BYOD program participation.Virtualization enables an unparalleled user experience by running two OSs simultaneously. One OS is for the IT manager to control and to enable corporate access and the other is for the user to play games and enjoy personal activitiesRed Bend worked with a leading OEM and a Fortune 100 enterprise on a pilot program to integrate and manage the enterprise corporate applications on a secure enterprise OS without interfering with the employee personal applications and content.
We discussed bringing low-cost Android to emerging markets and porting legacy code to new platforms.We talked about how virtualization is going to enable huge innovation in vehicles and how virtualization is changing the relationship between our private and professional lives.Similarly, there are existing services today that can benefit greatly from mobile virtualization.For example, today, a lot of secure services are operating in highly unsecure environments.eWallet, DRM encrypted content and confidential information are stored, processed and serviced on open platforms which are proven be easily hacked on a daily basis.Virtualization enables the creation of a secure domain for sensitive application and data in an open, vulnerable environment.By running dedicated, securely isolated virtual machine together with an open high level OS, using secure communication channels between them, it is possible for trusted services and open world environment to co-exist on the same device thereby making secure and efficient services a part of to our lives.For example, a leading Japanese mobile OEM is using virtualization for providing phone with a secure silo used to store sensitive information available to the user upon authentication. Hacking into the open Android on the phone, will not enable the intruder to compromise the data in the secure silo.Virtualization is an enabling technology that can be applied to decode DRM or host other types of secure services such as firewall, VoIP and malware detection and government services.We see virtualization as secure foundation for product and services yet to be invented as well as improving existing ones.