LynxSecure Offers Multi-OS Support for Latest Intel Embedded Platforms

LynuxWorks Inc. has announced availability of LynxSecure 4.0 on the latest hardware platforms from Intel. The Core i7 family has been widely used in the desktop and laptop market, and now the quad-core versions of the processor are available for embedded designs.

LynxSecure 4.0 provides the most flexible virtualization solution for use in embedded systems. Built from the ground up, and now in its 4th generation, LynxSecure offers the combination of security with functionality, allowing embedded designers to use the latest software and hardware technologies to build complex multi-operating systems (OSes).

The availability of LynxSecure on the latest quad core processors from Intel allows large GUI based OSes such as Windows or Linux to securely co-reside with more traditional embedded real-time OS solutions such as the LynxOS family of RTOSes from LynuxWorks. The advanced software virtualization in LynxSecure is integrated with the hardware virtualization technologies, such as vt-x and vt-d, on the Intel processors to give native performance and functionality of all the OSes that are running as “guests.”

Another key feature that LynxSecure offers is the ability to run guest OSes that have Symmetric Multi-processing (SMP) capabilities. The new quad-core devices from Intel makes this feature a reality by allowing one of the guest OSes to run across multiple cores, offering performance never seen before in a virtualized embedded system. For embedded systems that require a sophisticated user interface coupled with networked connectivity, and also hard real-time data response, the combination of LynxSecure with the quad-core Intel core-i7 processor allows all of this functionality to be easily developed, or migrated from existing systems, giving an unprecedented development window for the next generation of complex embedded systems.

LynxSecure typically supports a wide range of commercial boards and the initial port to the Intel quad-core core i7 uses Intel’s Customer Reference Board (CRB). The CRB allows embedded customers to evaluate the latest hardware and software technology and begin the porting process for their software systems while either building their own custom hardware or making the selection of commercial hardware platforms.

LynxSecure 4.0 gives developers the ability to run virtualized guest OSes either para-virtualized, such as Linux or the LynxOS RTOS for ultimate performance, or fully virtualized and unmodified, like the Microsoft Windows OS for complete compatibility. When using multicore processors, these virtualized guest OSes can share a single core, be given dedicated access to a core, or a guest OS can run in symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) mode across multiple cores.

Taking advantage of the hardware virtualization capabilities of the Intel Core i7, LynxSecure offers the ability to run guest OSes at near-native performance. It enables an unmodified OS such as Windows to run at much higher performance than other solutions that rely on the traditional emulation layer approach. LynxSecure also offers built-in virtual networking, allowing Windows applications to seamlessly communicate via TCP/IP with other virtualized OSes, such as Linux, running in a separate partition. This rapid and secure inter-partition communication is handled entirely by LynxSecure without modifying the applications or the virtualized OS.

LynuxWorks