WindRiver today unveiled Titanium Control, a software virtualization platform that enables businesses to evolve their aging legacy control systems to support Internet of Things applications. This is an on-premises cloud solution that can reside alongside legacy critical infrastructure yet allow for new services and operational efficiencies.
Titanium Control’s key features include:
• de facto standard open source software for on-premises cloud and virtualization, including Linux, real-time Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) and OpenStack;
• high performance and high availability with accelerated vSwitch and inter-VM communication, plus virtual infrastructure management;
• hitless software updates and patching with no interruption to services or applications;
• scalability from two to more than 100 compute nodes; and
• security features including isolation, secure boot, and Trusted Platform Module enabled through Enhanced Platform Awareness.
In a recent interview with TMC (News - Alert), Gareth Noyes, WindRiver chief strategy officer, explained that typically each control loop is tied to a physical device, so control system data is essentially locked. But when you introduce virtualization into the environment, he said, you can more easily debug and upgrade it. Plus, he said, you can then aggregate data from different control loops to get context across your manufacturing line or across your control suite for greater insight. You can also use it as a compute footprint from which to run your analytics, he added.
This new WindRiver approach is also attractive because some companies don’t want their data to leave their enterprise, he said. And because it doesn’t leave the premises, he added, latency is less of a concern.
“ARC believes the influx of new IIoT technologies now entering the automation market has the potential to be a major disruption to existing business models that have been relatively stable for decades,” said Harry Forbes, research director at ARC Advisory Group. “An excellent example is Titanium Control, which combines Wind River’s (News - Alert) long experience in real-time operating systems with on-premise[s] cloud computing technology. This combination enables the virtualization of real-time automation applications that until recently could only be implemented in embedded systems hardware. The implications of this capability for the manufacturing automation market are very far-reaching, and automation suppliers are noticing.”