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Mar 27 2017
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[Member Blog] Why Codethink is a founding member of the Civil Infrastructure Platform, a Linux Foundation initiative

By Blog

by Agustin Benito Bethencourt, Codethink

On April 4th 2016 a new Linux Foundation initiative called the Civil Infrastructure Platform was announced. CIP aims to share efforts around building a Linux-based commodity platform for industrial grade products that need to be maintained for anything between 25 and 50 years – in some cases even longer. Codethink is one of the founding members.

Industrial grade use cases

In order to describe why this initiative is relevant let me go over the use cases that motivate companies like Siemens, Toshiba, Hitachi, and Renesas to share efforts.

During the Open Source Leadership Summit, Noriaki Fukuyasu (Linux Foundation) and myself, based on the experience of Siemens, Hitachi and Toshiba, described the development life cycle in industrial grade use cases. For example, a railway management system is as follows:

  • Analysis + design + development: 3 – 6 years
  • Customizations and extensions: 2 – 4 years
  • The certification process and other authorizations take a year.
  • Each new release or update has to go through further certifications and authorizations that take between 3 and 6 months.
  • The system is expected to work for between 25 and 50 years.

So on average, an industrial grade product might take 5 to 7 years from conception to deployment. This is coherent with our experience in other industries like automotive, where life cycles are also quite long despite the expected lifetime being shorter.

A key part of the life cycle is maintenance. Due to its length, the associated risks are high. The certification processes to introduce significant changes in any already deployed systems are painful and expensive. In addition, the capacity to simulate a production environment is, in general, limited. This is true in other cases like energy production plans, for instance.

Open Source principles in the Civil Infrastructure industry

It’s obvious that Open Source could have a dramatic impact in this industry. By sharing efforts, corporations can commoditise a significant portion of the base system focusing on differentiation factors, increasing control through transparency and the quality of that starting point over time. Collaboration with upstream will bring even higher impact benefits.

Two immediate challenges come to mind when thinking about Open Source in this industry:

  • Development of processes and practices to produce software for safety critical environments.
  • Bridging the gap between the Open Source approach for software maintenance and the approach currently taken when building large-scale platform projects. For instance, how can approaches oriented to update any specific Open Source software component to the latest upstream stable version be compatible with any typical industry SDLC?

 

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Feb 15 2017
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[News Release] Renesas Electronics Extends Embedded Technology Leadership by Joining Civil Infrastructure Platform Project

By Announcement, In the News

Becomes first semiconductor supplier to join open source project working to create a base layer of industrial grade software

SAN FRANCISCO, February 15, 2017 – The Civil Infrastructure Platform (CIP) project today announced that Renesas Electronics Corporation has joined as a Platinum member. The CIP community is working to establish an open source base layer of software to enable the use and implementation of software building blocks that meet the safety and reliability requirements of industrial and civil infrastructure. Renesas joins founding Platinum members Hitachi, Siemens and Toshiba and Silver members Codethink and Plat’Home. CIP is hosted by The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit advancing professional open source management for mass collaboration.

CIP launched in the spring of 2016 to address the needs of organizations in industries such as power generation and distribution, water, oil and gas, transportation and building automation for reliable and secure Linux-based embedded systems that can be sustained over a period of 10 to as many as 60 years. By establishing this base layer, CIP aims to speed implementation of civil infrastructure systems, build upon existing open source foundations and expertise, establish de facto standards by providing a base layer reference implementation, and contribute to and influence upstream projects regarding industrial needs.

“As the first semiconductor supplier to join the Civil Infrastructure Platform project, we are pleased to extend our commitment to open technology development,” said Ichiro Tomioka, Vice President, Head of the ICT & Office Business Division at Renesas Electronics Corporation. “Contributing to the development of shared technology is critical to Renesas Electronics, in addition to our work with Yocto Project and Automotive Grade Linux. We are one of the most active contributors to Linux itself. We hope to work with the CIP community to further advance this important project.”

About the Civil Infrastructure Platform Project

The Civil Infrastructure Platform (CIP) is a collaborative, open source project hosted by The Linux Foundation. The project is focused on establishing an open source base layer of industrial grade software to enable the use and implementation of reusable software building blocks that meet the safety, reliability and other requirements of industrial and civil infrastructure. For additional information, visit https://www.cip-project.org/.

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Oct 13 2016
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Civil Infrastructure Platform Announces First Super Long Term Support Kernel at Embedded Linux Conference Europe

By Blog

Today in Berlin, the members of Civil Infrastructure Platform (CIP) made available the details of the first release of the open source project’s super long term support (SLTS) kernel.

Development will begin shortly on SLTS kernel version 4.4. Until the announcement of the next version of the SLTS kernel, which the CIP community anticipates will happen in two to three years, feature backports from the upstream Linux kernel may be merged with the CIP kernel. The CIP community plans to maintain 4.4 for security and bug fixes for more than 10 years.

CIP launched in the spring of 2016 to address the needs of organizations in industries such as power generation and distribution, water, oil and gas, transportation, building automation and more for reliable and secure Linux-based embedded systems that can be sustained over a period of 10 to as many as 60 years. The project’s goal is to provide an open source base layer of industrial-grade software that permits the use and implementation of software building blocks that meet these requirements.

CIP will collaborate with other open source projects, including the Linaro Stable Kernel (LSK), Long Term Support Initiative (LTSI), Eclipse LTS and others.

For additional details about CIP kernel development, please visit https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/civilinfrastructureplatform/start.

Aug 24 2016
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Ben Hutchings becomes first maintainer for Civil Infrastructure Platform’s super long term support base layer

By Blog

The Civil Infrastructure Platform (CIP) aims to establish a “base layer” of industrial-grade software using the Linux kernel and other open source projects. This base layer will be available for use by developers creating software building blocks that meet safety, security, reliability and other requirements that are critical to industrial and civil infrastructure projects.

The initial focus of CIP is to develop a super long term supported (SLTS) base layer and maintenance infrastructure and to develop domain-specific enhancements. To achieve these development goals, CIP needs an experienced maintainer for SLTS.

We’re pleased to announce today at LinuxCon North America that Ben Hutchings will work with the CIP to provide this support. Ben, an employee of CIP member Codethink Ltd.,  has extensive experience in long term support for the kernel and other open source software working with the Debian and the Debian-LTS project. For the CIP, he will take responsibility for SLTS kernel development and its maintenance, such as bug fixes, security fixes and feature backports from upstream projects. He will also provide consultation to developers contributing to CIP base layer development.

May 02 2016
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Critical Infrastructure Goes Open Source

By In the News

The electrical grid, water, roads and bridges—the infrastructure we take for granted—is seldom noticed until it’s unavailable. The burgeoning open source software movement is taking steps to help rebuild crumbling U.S. civil infrastructure while capitalizing on expansion in emerging markets by providing software building blocks to help develop interoperable and secure transportation, electric power, oil and gas as well as the healthcare infrastructure.

Under a program launched in April called the Civil Infrastructure Platform, the Linux Foundation said the initiative would provide “an open source base layer of industrial grade software to enable the use and implementation of software building blocks for civil infrastructure.”

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Apr 05 2016
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Linux Foundation announces Civil Infrastructure Platform

By In the News

On the first day of the Embedded Linux Conference, the Linux Foundation announced a new software project called the Civil Infrastructure Platform (CIP).

CIP is an open source framework that will support the development of software needed to run critical services that create the backbone of any modern society, including electric power, oil and gas, water, health care, communications, and transportation.

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Apr 05 2016
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Linux Foundation Launches Civil Infrastructure Project

By In the News

The Linux Foundation wants to help ensure critical services, such as electric power, oil and gas, water, healthcare, communications, and transportation, have the proper software foundation to deliver solutions. The organization has announced the Civil Infrastructure Platform (CIP), an open-source framework designed to ensure civil infrastructures provide safety, security and reliability.

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Apr 04 2016
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The Linux Foundation Launches First Linux-Based Civil Infrastructure Project

By Announcement

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (Embedded Linux Conference) – April 4, 2016 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced the Civil Infrastructure Platform (CIP), an open source framework that will provide the software foundation needed to deliver essential services for civil infrastructure and economic development on a global scale. Early supporters of CIP include Codethink, Hitachi, Plat’Home, Siemens and Toshiba.

Civil infrastructure systems deliver critical services that are considered the lifelines of society: electric power, oil and gas, water, health care, communications, transportation and more. A 2014 PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report estimated the annual global infrastructure demand is $4 trillion and will climb to nearly $9 trillion by 2025 due to the rapid growth of emerging markets. Countries like Brazil, China, and Japan, for example, are experiencing accelerated rates of growth in civil infrastructure projects to match the pace of production and trade with other countries around the world. Without an open source software platform leveraged across these multinational projects, infrastructure development faces duplication of effort, loss of development time, fragmentation and interoperability issues across other civil infrastructure systems.

“Linux and open source software can accelerate innovation, enable interoperability and transform technology and business economics for an industry. The Civil Infrastructure Platform is a great example of this opportunity,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director, The Linux Foundation. “Through collaboration and open source development, developers will be able to build the common framework that will support some of society’s most important functions for decades to come.”

The Civil Infrastructure Platform will aim to work upstream with the Linux kernel and other open source projects to establish a “base layer” of industrial-grade software. This base layer will enable the use of software building blocks that meet safety, security, reliability and other requirements that are critical to industrial and civil infrastructure projects. As an open source software project built collaboratively across industries, the platform will address major challenges civil infrastructure projects face:

  • Speed: As an open source solution, CIP enables engineers to save time building foundational elements shared across civil infrastructure projects both small and large;
  • Cost: By developing CIP as an open source project, the development costs are shared and controlled by thousands of developers;
  • Interoperability: CIP provides an open framework that integrates existing standards to support plug and play based system designs;
  • Reliability: Based on Linux, CIP will provide a robust software base for system designs;
  • Security and Safety: CIP will provide a software foundation that enables secure and safe delivery of critical services like power, gas, and water, even in times of disaster;
  • Sustainability: The initial focus of CIP will help establish a long-term maintenance infrastructure for selected open source components, accounting for product life cycles of 10-60 years. To achieve this, CIP members will collaborate on agreed-upon areas required to meet civil infrastructure systems’ requirements.

Comments from early supporters

Hitachi
“Hitachi’s mission is to contribute to society through the development of superior, original technology and products. Thus, Hitachi has a long history of contributions that help provide society’s infrastructure such as power, water, urban and transport systems which require both safety and reliability. The aim of the Civil Infrastructure Platform (CIP) is to provide a platform which satisfies these needs, and we believe that it will become a common, global platform through which we can achieve an even more comfortable and efficient society,” said Masaaki Iwasaki, laboratory manager of the OSS Technology Laboratory in the Research and Development Group of Hitachi, Ltd.

Siemens
“As a global leader in technology for products and solutions that drive our world’s infrastructure, Siemens is committed to address future challenges of digitalization by providing and supporting long-lived, robust and industrial-strength solutions,” said Marquart Franz, senior principal key expert for IT platforms at Siemens Corporate Technology. “With ever-increasing software intensity of our systems, partnering and open source development are necessary to ensure high quality core components based on IT technology. CIP will help us focus on these challenges.”

Toshiba
“We are committed to creating a secure, reliable and maintainable software platform for infrastructure systems by leading and contributing to CIP as a key member,” said Shigeyoshi Shimotsuji, executive vice president of Industrial ICT Solutions Company, Toshiba Corporation. “Collaborative open source development is the best way to not only overcome common issues but also to lead innovation for the future. Toshiba believes that CIP will become an essential software platform to improve our life.”

Yoshitake Kobayashi of Toshiba Corporation and Urs Gleim of Siemens AG will represent the project by presenting an overview talk of CIP at Embedded Linux Conference on Tuesday, April 5 at 9:00 am PT.

CIP is an independently funded software project hosted by The Linux Foundation. The Linux Foundation’s projects span the enterprise, mobile, embedded and life sciences markets and are backed by many of the largest names in technology. For more information, please visit: http://collabprojects.linuxfoundation.org/ or https://www.cip-project.org/.

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

 

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The Linux Foundation and Linux Standard Base are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Media Contact
Whitney True
The Linux Foundation
504.427.1242
wtrue@linuxfoundation.org

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