The success of QNX Technology Day was confirmed interest of the Russian IT community in the latest technologies of the QNX RTOS.
On April 23, 2009, a technical seminar “QNX Technology Day” was held in Moscow, organized by SWD Software and SVD Embedded Systems.
The event brought together more than 70 representatives of various industries and sciences, such as aviation, astronautics, military-industrial complex, communications and telecommunications, transport, mechanical engineering, robotics, metallurgy, oil and gas.
According to the organizers, the key objective of the technical seminar “QNX Technology Day” was to demonstrate the latest QNX RTOS technologies using examples of the most popular hardware platforms of Russian and foreign production.
To achieve this goal, an event program was developed, which included presentations by experts in the field of embedded technologies, a demo exposition of implemented software and hardware solutions, as well as a round table discussion on the most pressing issues.
The seminar was opened by Alexander Varvarik, technical director of SWD Software. Mr. Varvarik spoke about effective tools for developing management systems — QNX 6.4 platform, whose technologies can maximize the performance, reliability and portability of embedded systems in the field of automotive electronics, industrial control, networking systems, military-industrial complex and medical equipment.
The second was a report by Sergei Zyl, technical director of SVD Embedded Systems, dedicated to the standard fault tolerance mechanisms of the QNX hard real-time system.
Experts in the field of software and hardware solutions continued the program of presentations.
Boris Bobrov, CEO of Icytecture, gave a presentation on “Use of i.MX and QNX processors in industrial and medical projects.”
Leading experts from the SVD VS company covered the issues of creating and using hardware and software solutions based on the QNX RTOS and the ARM platform, Fastwel products and the MIPS32 architecture.
As part of the demo exposition, seminar participants were introduced to working samples of software and hardware solutions based on QNX technologies and hardware platforms of Russian and foreign production.
The stands presented:
• Software and hardware solutions based on QNX and ARM.
• Hardware and software solutions based on Intel Atom (x86 architecture).
• Domestic developments on the MIPS32 hardware architecture platform.
• QNX CAR software platform for automotive systems.
• Fast boot technologies on Intel Atom family processors.
• QNX technologies on the Icytecture platform of the Freescale i.MX processor family.
As part of the seminar, a press briefing was held, in which journalists from leading periodicals in the field of information technology, industrial automation and embedded systems took part.
Alexander Varvarik, Leonid Agafonov, managing director of SWD Software, and Larry Atkinson, sales manager for QNX Software Systems (QSS) in the EMEA region, answered journalists’ questions.
First of all, the questions concerned the initiatives of the organizing companies in the field of participation in the formation of the Russian market of embedded solutions and the adaptation of advanced world technologies to the requirements of Russian developers.
Mr. Varvarik recalled that SWD Software has been working closely with QNX Software Systems, which is considered an innovation leader in the field of real-time technologies, for eighteen years.
The Russian company, as a QSS partner, helps domestic developers adapt QNX technologies to the requirements of the domestic market, including regulatory documents in the field of information security.
“With highly trained staff, we are able to perform highly specific systems programming tasks that allow customers to concentrate on developing their product,” — noted Alexander Varvarik.
Issues related to existing and future software and hardware solutions created on the basis of QNX technologies were no less actively discussed.
Leonid Agafonov emphasized that new hardware platforms — These are new markets, and the seminar organizers hope to be able to provide companies focused on new technologies with a full range of services on the QNX platform to meet their needs.
When asked about the industry purpose of the QNX RTOS, Larry Atkinson responded as follows: “QNX developers are primarily focused on the needs of the automotive industry, but the business world is diverse and there are many other industry segments in which QNX’s advanced technologies are in demand, such as industrial automation, military-industrial complex, telecommunications and the embedded systems market.”
“QNX Technology Day” ended with a round table, during which the event participants discussed current issues of creating software and hardware solutions based on advanced QNX RTOS technologies, hardware support and custom developments.
“The goal of our workshop was to show how QNX software technologies enable the full functionality of today’s most popular hardware platforms.
In our opinion, this topic is of interest to developers, since they choose not only a hardware platform, but efficiently working software and hardware systems that allow them to more quickly implement application projects.
Our experience of working with many hardware suppliers helped us prepare such a rich program, — Leonid Agafonov said. – Today we can safely say that QNX Technology Day was a great success, since we were able to attract more than 80 specialists from various industries and fields of activity to this event, as well as our partners and media representatives.
We hope that the seminar will become a good tradition and will continue to be held in the future in addition to our key marketing event, the QNX-Russia conference, which is held every two years.
The information partners of the seminar were the magazines “Open Systems” and “World of Communications. Connect!”, “Automation in Industry”, STA, “Embedded Systems”, ISUP, PC Week/RE weekly, ASTERA Internet portals, DailyComm and Comprice.Ru.
Information about SWD Software
SWD Software Ltd. – official distributor of the QNX real-time OS and ConnectTech equipment in Russia and the CIS countries, IBM business partner for Telelogic products.
The main activities of the company — supply of software and hardware, pre-sale consultations, technical support, certified training.
SWD Software provides developers of embedded applications, real-time systems and smart devices with a reliable software and hardware platform and effective tools for creating systems of any complexity.
Information about the company «SVD Embedded Systems»
SVD Embedded Systems company is a developer and supplier of solutions based on a secure real-time operating system.
The main activities of the company — providing military-industrial complex enterprises and enterprises focused on domestic software and hardware solutions with software that meets security and reliability requirements.
The company develops system software, carries out custom software development, and provides a full cycle of support for supplied and developed software, including training, consulting and participation in R&D. The company’s activities are regulated by Russian licenses and certificates.
What is QNX
Since 1980, developers have used and relied on QNX technology to build systems that require trouble-free operation: medical devices, telematics devices, Internet routers, 911 call centers, process control systems, and even control systems for the International Space Station.
Regardless of their scale and complexity, these systems have one thing in common: they all operate continuously 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, without interruption
QNX — it is a real-time operating system that strictly follows the principles of microkernel architecture. In the QNX real-time operating system, the kernel is responsible only for the basic OS primitives (signals, timers, scheduling, etc.).
All other components of the operating system: drivers, file systems, protocol stacks, user applications are executed outside the kernel as separate processes, each in its own protected address space. Such a scheme initially has an exclusive, «built-in» fault tolerance. No commercial real-time operating system offers this kind of fault tolerance.
In addition, all components of the QNX real-time operating system use a single, clearly deterministic mechanism to communicate with each other — message exchange.
It forms a virtual “software bus” between the system components, allowing you to connect to it or, conversely, disconnect any component “on the fly.” Moreover, messages can be freely transmitted between computer network nodes, providing transparent access to any resource, no matter where it is located.
By choosing QNX as the platform for your solutions, you can:
Reduce time to market for new products:
Use the same operating system across your entire product line
Reuse once created technologies and developments
Use the most suitable equipment for your tasks — support and availability of BSP for a variety of modern network processors and processor boards, including MIPS, PowerPC, SH-4, ARM, StrongArm, Intel XScale and x86.
Quickly port open source UNIX applications to QNX — network protocols and services, as well as other functional modules…
Optimize development and maintenance costs:
Maximize performance and reliability, ensure operation in hard real time
Create ultra-reliable systems capable of independent intelligent recovery and elimination of the consequences of a failure — increasing the availability of services provided and minimizing administration and maintenance costs.
Leverage native support for symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) and multi-core processors to build systems of any size without changing the code or architecture of existing modules
Simplify the design of failover clusters and add computing power by simply adding an additional processor to the network
Using adaptive resource decomposition technology, optimally use all the power of hardware platforms and provide architecture-guaranteed protection from the effects of distributed network denial-of-service attacks and malicious software and lack of resources
Extend the product life cycle:
Design extremely reliable systems with the ability to dynamically update during operation without stopping or rebooting
Examples of application of the QNX real-time operating system in Russia
Typically, these are systems in industry that manage quite complex and critical production with very high requirements for response time to emergency situations, requirements for reliability and continuity of control.
The most famous application of the QNX real-time operating system in Russia is the automated monitoring and control system for the layout of the Trinity Bridge across the Neva in St. Petersburg, implemented by ZAO NPP Promtransavtomatika. This system has been in operation since April 2002. After reconstruction, the bridge never fell behind the construction schedule.
Control system for northern main oil pipelines, located in Ukhta.
The system includes six hot-standby operator stations that simultaneously control four directions of the main oil pipeline on the Yaroslavl-Ukhta section (length 1,500 km).
The Sirius-QNX system is designed for operational dispatch control and management of the technological process of pumping oil through sections of eight main oil pipelines of Sibnefteprovod OJSC. The total length of the single-line oil pipeline system is 3,696 km.
An automation system for cold rolling mills based on QNX was implemented at a 5-stand mill at the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works. Metallurgical production control systems based on QNX operate in Norilsk, Nizhny Tagil, and Elektrostal.
Cellulose ether injection system for the Romashkinskoye field (Almetyevsk)
Vessel traffic control systems in ports (St. Petersburg, Murmansk, Vladivostok, Mariupol) and along the Kerch Strait (port Caucasus)
The information and control system of the compressor shop of a gas pumping enterprise is being implemented at the facilities of the Volgotransgaz enterprise of OJSC Gazprom.
Currently, the system has been implemented in the Morkinsky MG health care facility, the Vyatka MG health care facility, the Vyaznikovsky MG health care facility and the Vladimir MG health care facility, Vyazniki compressor station.
JSC Salavatnefteorgsintez, process control system for benzene production based on SCADA Realflex. The control system operates more than 16,000 physical channels.
TO SMU-4 «Mosmetrostroy» Moscow.
Automatic control system for water pumping and smoke removal of the Gagarinsky railway tunnel based on SCADA STATUS-4. The Gagarin tunnel is the longest railway tunnel in Europe within the city.
Computer systems for solving problems of emergency automation and emergency control of various levels in energy systems produced by JSC Institute of Automation of Energy Systems (Novosibirsk).
Currently in operation are UVK APNU of the Taimyr and Norilsk energy systems, UVK ADV of the western and central parts of the Unified Energy System of Siberia.
Examples of using the QNX real-time operating system abroad
The most striking example of the use of the QNX real-time operating system is the work with VISA credit cards in all regional offices in North America.
Traffic control. In the city of Ottawa-Carleton (Canada), based on the QNX real-time operating system, a traffic management system for urban transport of the city municipality (RMOC — Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Calerton) has been developed.
This system integrates about 700 traffic lights and 3,000 roadside sensors along 1,100 kilometers of highway.
The capacity of these highways is 5.4 billion vehicles per year.
In addition to the time and duration of switching traffic lights at each intersection of the city, this control system must record ongoing events and analyze the performance of equipment through roadside sensors.
Nuclear reactor control.
One of the branches of the Canadian company Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., which is known as a designer, manufacturer and seller of nuclear reactors, specializes in the development of software products for control and monitoring.
Based on the QNX real-time operating system, this department has developed a nuclear reactor control system called the Open Architecture Distributed Control System.
In addition to using the QNX real-time operating system in the field of control, it is also successfully used for scientific research: modeling processes, tracking the progress of experiments.
Cisco Systems uses an optimized version of the QNX Neutrino real-time operating system microkernel in IOS XR software.
The IOS XR software package is designed to manage Cisco CRS-1 switches, provides continuous operation and supports advanced management functions for terabit switches with a distributed architecture.