About the Real-time and Embedded Systems Forum

Our mission is to offer all organizations concerned with real-time and embedded systems solutions a forum, where we can share knowledge, integrate open initiatives, and certify approved products and processes. Towards that end, the Real-time and Embedded Systems Forum is holding an open plenary session at this conference focussing on solutions in the market today, followed by working group sessions on the thursday.

Agenda (v1.04 April 9 2001)

Wednesday (Open to non-members)

0800-0900 Registration, Coffee and Continental Breakfast

0900-0920 Introduction -- Andrew Josey, Director Server Platforms, The Open Group
This session will give an overview of the Real-time and Embedded Systems Forum, its mission and an outline of the current activities.

0920-1000 Embedded Linux - Standards, Challenges, Obstacles - A Red Hat Perspective -- Manfred Hollstein, Red Hat

1000-1030 The POSIX® Standards Update - -- Joseph M. Gwinn, IEEE PASC SSWG Realtime Working Group Chair, Andrew Josey, IEEE 1003.1 Chair.

1030 -- Break

1100-1145 The Distributed Real-Time Specification for Java, Douglas M. Wells, The Open Group.

The Distributed Real-Time Specification for Java request (JSR-50) has been recently approved for the purpose of providing acceptable predictability of end-to-end timeliness of trans-node activities within Java applications. Building upon the recently published Real-Time Specification for Java, the DRTSJ expert group expects to extend Java's Remote Method Invocation (RMI) to support control flow style real-time distributed object systems. This presentation discusses the initial goals for coherent control flow across multiple nodes and enabling application-defined criteria for data consistency and failure detection.

1145-1230 J Consortium Specification "Real-Time Data Access" -- Wolfgang Hartmann, Siemens AG

Sun ("The Real-Time Specification for Java") and the J Consortium ("Real-Time Core Extensions") have published specifications for a real-time Java. The basic concepts of both specifications are quite different, however they conform providing the functionality of internal processing comprehensively. This focus is not suitable for the applications in the field of industrial automation. As a consequence the J Consortium founded the "Real-Time Data Access Working Group" which is working on the "Real-Time Data Access" (RTDA) specification for further standardization. As implied by the name, the focus is set on the data access that is characteristic for the industrial automation (event signaling, accessing digital I/O, ADC, DAC, etc.) and which can be applied to the RT and the non-RT domain as well. The RTDA specification provides for complete device-independence which is significant for the definition of a uniform data access API. The functional provision for hard real-time processing has been reduced to a minimum. Nonetheless extremely short response times can be achieved which are comparable with response times resulting from e.g. a C-based implementation. The typical architecture of application systems is also reflected insofar as hard real-time is usually only required for a small part of the complete system.

1230-1400 -- Lunch

1400 -- 1445 Marcelo Masera, Joint Research Centre - European Commission Institute for Systems, Informatics and Safety Dependable Software Applications Group TP210

The area of dependability of information infrastructures has been the object of special attention by different states and international organisations for its broad and critical implications for society. Concerns are high because incidents with such systems may not only provoke grave losses to single organisations, but also have repercussions all through society and even affecting the security of a country. This session will look at the results of a recent workshop in this area, with emphasis on the connotations that the problem of critical infrastructures has on embedded systems.

1445-1530 An overview of Real-time Linux, Bernhard Kuhn, Lineo

Linux already has some soft real-time capabilities, but these are often not sufficient for applications in the areas of multimedia devices (such as settop boxes or game consoles) and machine control systems. There are several methods to archive guaranteed timings to fit the advanced needs. This talk will discuss the differant flavours and shows which real-time Linux extension is the best one for which type of application.

1530 -- 1600 Break

1600 -- 1700 Panel Session and Discussion

Closing


Speaker Biographies (in alphabetical order)

Andrew Josey, Director of Server Platforms, The Open Group

Andrew Josey is director for the Platform Program within The Open Group that includes the Real-time and Embedded Systems Forum and the UNIX System certification and specification development. Presently, Andrew chairs the Austin Group, the working group responsible for development of the joint revision to POSIX 1003.1, POSIX 1003.2 and the Single UNIX Specification. He is the IEEE P1003.1 chair and the PASC Functional chair of Interpretations. He also manages development of the Open Group's Real-time and embedded test suites.

Andrew is the advocate for Linux and Open Source within the Open Group and represents the Open Group at the Linux Standard Base project. He manages the Open Source versions of several of The Open Group's test frameworks and test suites.

Bernhard Kuhn , Software Engineer, Lineo, Inc

Bernhard Kuhn studied electrical engineering and then spent two years as Ph. D. student on component oriented hardware/software codesign in the areas of embedded and real time systems. Afterwards, he has done over 50 publications within nearly two years working as test engineerer and hardware editor for the German "Linux Magazin" and as co-editor of the British "Linux Magazine". Today, he is working as software engineerer at Lineo Inc. in the areas of real-time and embedded systems. Bernhard Kuhn is a foundation member of the "Federation for a Free Informational Infrastructure" fighting against software patents. He has also served on the Board of Directors of the Real Time Linux Foundation.

Marcelo Masera, Scientific Officer, Joint Research Centre, The European Commission

Marcelo Masera is a scientific officer at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. He works at the Reliable Information Technologies unit, in the Dependable Software Applications group. This group supports the policies in areas such as the European Dependability Initiative (R&D Framework programme), and the links within Trust and confidence in the Information Society and the underpinning technologies. His areas of interest are: dependability, information infrastructures, embedded systems.

Wolfgang Hartmann,Project Manager, Siemens AG

Wolfgang Hartmann is working in a research group of Siemens A&D and is engaged in the topic Real-Time Java in the industrial automation for several years. Since the foundation of the J Consortium in May 1999 he is a member of the Real-Time Data Access Working Group.

Manfred Hollstein, Senior Architect GNU/Linux Solutions, Red Hat, Inc

Manfred studied compiler construction in the 80s. Based on that experience, he worked with AEG in Germany on compilers and runtime systems, before joining the German super-computer project "Suprenum". During this work he designed the concept of a source level debugger allowing the developers to debug their distributed applications. Since 1991 he has been contributing to the GNU project, working on a wide variety of packages, the most important being GNU gcc, libg++, libstdc++, gdb, and binutils. Equipped with this experience he joined Cygnus Solutions in 1999, and since that time he is responsible for identifying the opportunities for embedded Linux.

Joseph M. Gwinn, Chair of the IEEE PASC Real-time System Services Working Group

Mr. Gwinn has been building , adapting and using real-time embedded operating systems for 25 years, most recently for a large US defense contractor. He holds degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and is the Vice-Chair of the POSIX System Services Working Group (SSWG), and is also the Chair of the Real-time subgroup of the SSWG.

Douglas M. Wells, Director of System Technology, The Open Group

Mr. Wells is working with the DARPA Quorum community to integrate resource and fault management components into a multi-level QoS toolkit. He led the Real-Time and Adaptivity groups at The Open Group Research Institute in developing commercial-grade QoS-aware components and in applying those components within real-world applications, including the Navy's AEGIS and the Air Force's AWACS weapons systems. Previously, he managed projects at Concurrent Computer Corporation in secure, real-time, distributed systems. Mr. Wells has also served as architect and project leader for real-time and distributed system development at several companies, including Stratus Computer, Data General and MIT. He holds 10 patents on performance and security aspects of multi-domain, object-based systems and is currently a member of Distributed Real-Time Specification for Java expert group.


Thursday Morning

09:00-11:00 Working Group session - open to non-members by invitation

This session is a joint session with the Quality of Service Task Force

The Real-time and Embedded Systems Forum will be holding a joint session with the Quality of Service task force to look specifically at the Quality of Service aspects for Real-time and Embedded Systems.

1. Introductions

2. Presentation by QoS Task Force

  • QoS Task Force and Component Map Overview
  • Where RealTime and Embedded Systems Fit
  • What are the Issues
    1. propogation of qos requirements and measurements from O/S through WANs to Remote services.
    2. variation on how kernels, O/S etc. define and use real-time variables
3. Presentation by Real-Time
  • Real-Time & Embedded Systems Program Overview
  • Where QoS Fits
  • What are the Issues
    QoS specification techniques- how to specify and test for quality of service.
4. Open Discussion and Prioritization of the Issues Identified above

5. Future of Joint WG

Note that if this session overruns the following session will commence later than planned.

11:00-17:00 Working Group sessions - open to non-members by invitation

These are working sessions of the Forum:

1. Introductions

2. Status of current working groups - report backs from San Jose.

  • Testing and Certification Group
  • Real-time Profiling Group
  • Windows Interest Group
  • Real-time Security group.

3. A RoadMap for the Forum -- Discussion
Identifying requirements to be explored Possible work items, Outline roadmap

4. Liaison reports
Status updates from other related industry & standards groups - SAE, NCITS R1, UDI Consortium, J Consortium, IEEE PASC

Linux Standard Base Update

As an informational session, following on from a request at the last meeting there will be an update on the status of the Linux Standards Base efforts.

5. New work items

Dave Emery -- High Reliability and Safe Software

6. Testing and Product Certification group

An update on POSIX profile testing for 1003.13
POSIX Conformance paper

7. Profiles Working Group

-Briefings on profiling activities in other standards groups, and consortia- IEEE PASC (1003.13)

-POSIX.1 Revision Subprofiling Update

A presentation will be given of the changes in POSIX.1 for subprofiling, enabling a new set of "units of functionality" as per POSIX 1003.13.

-Evolution of the Real-time and Embedded product standards

POSIX certification to date has been based around supersets of the original POSIX.1 standard. For some devices this is too large a footprint, and so there is a gap in the certification efforts for systems below what is now termed a Profile 54 system.

The current Multipurpose Real-time Operating system product standard was an attempt to bridge some of this gap by profiling 1003.1b and 1003.1c, see URL http://www.opengroup.org/branding/prodstds/x98rt.htm

However it did not address the smaller profiles such as those in IEEE Std 1003.13. With the test development effort to address smaller footprint profiles we need to be considering building a product standard in support of a certification program for this.

This discussion should focus on the requirements for a new certification program built around the smaller profiles, are there additional APIs or standards that should be included.

8. Security Working Group

(further agenda to follow)

A teleconference will be setup for those not in Berlin.

9. Next conferences
Austin
Amsterdam

10. AOB

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