7 will allow manufacturers to extend the life of
the system core across several generations of
their products, thereby increasing the return-
on-investment (ROI) for the OS.
The modularity of VxWorks 7 delivers a very
high level of scalability, allowing customers to
choose their required application packages such
as connectivity or security-based middleware to
suit functionality, code and memory footprint,
and performance or power demands of target
applications across diverse markets. Customers
can now build common platforms across multiple
product lines by installing VxWorks in different
classes of devices from small-form-factor edge
devices, gateways and large-scale complex intel-
ligent systems – all of which will be crucial for
the IoT.
In addition, a micro-kernel that is approximately
only 20KB in size is also available as a VxWorks
7 Profile. This micro-kernel targets deployment
in small or wearable devices, or in larger systems
running on a small core in big/small multi-core
processor configurations that offload either im-
portant or repetitive tasks to the small core.
A critical aspect of the IoT will be security, as its
connectivity will mean significantly increased
exposure to threats. However, built-in security
capabilities within VxWorks 7 will provide de-
signers with the flexibility to design in the neces-
sary or required degree of security. VxWorks 7
has been developed based on four pillars of se-
curity, which are: Design for the prevention of
malicious code in development; Boot & Execute
for the prevention of untrusted binaries from
executing; Operation for the prevention of mali-
cious attacks while in operation; and Power-
down for the prevention of onboard data access
when a system is at rest. Customers can decide
upon the right level of security required and if
one or all of these criteria are appropriate. This
depends not least upon the environment for de-
vice deployment – the ability to access devices
will not be the same within a defense facility as
in a shopping mall, for example. A specific secu-
rity element is the integrated Root-of-Trust
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Figure 2. Micro-kernel running on the small core in a big/small multi-core processor
Figure 3. The four pillars of security within VXWorks 7
