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Tech Focus: Celebrating the Embedded Web
HIGHLIGHTS
Birthday week
Internet Protocol infiltrates low-power machine-to-machine networks
6LoWPAN: The wireless embedded Internet – Part 1: Why 6LoWPAN?
Editor's Note
In his most recent column “Birthday Week,” Jack Ganssle celebrates the creation of the World Wide Web 20 years ago this month. On August 6, 1991 , Tim Berners-Lee posted the first public description of the World Wide Web on the Internet. Jack also notes the introduction of the IBM PC ten years earlier, on August 12, 1981 .
As significant as the introduction of the IBM PC was, what transformed it from desktop computer into a powerful communications machine occurred a month later: the September, 1981 release of TCP/IP Version 4 (IPv4)), the first implementation of the protocol to be widely deployed commercially.
It is still with us today despite the fact that its successor, IPv6, debuted in 1998 with many more IP addresses and vastly improved security. But it was only with the September, 2008 release of 6LoWPAN for transmission of IPv6 packets over wireless networks based on IEEE 802.15, that IPv4’s successor is finally taking off.
As noted in some of the articles collected here, embedded developers were among the first to start networking their desktop computers using TCP/IP and the WWW. But they also took the Web’s various subsidiary components apart – UDP, HTML, UDDI, XML, SOAP, and WSDL among others – and put them back together in ways that have been useful in embedded systems design. My Editor’s Top Picks on how they did this include:
Migrating from IPv4 to IPv6
IPv6 on a microcontroller
Real-time Ethernet
With the addition of 6LoWPAN , embedded developers now have a new set of connectivity and design options – and acronyms to learn. These include: WoT (Web of Things), IoT (Internet of Things), LLNs (low power and lossy networks), ROLL (Routing over LLNs), RPL (Routing Protocol over LLNs), REST (Representational State Transfer), CORE (Constrained Restful Environments), and COAP (Constrained Application Protocol).
I look forward to contributions from you to Embedded.com and ESD Magazine about the challenges you face in this new environment, what you are implementing in your designs and how you are doing it.
Design How-Tos
Introduction to Web Services
Web services are coming to the enterprise, and embedded use can't be far behind. Here are the basics.
Expanding the Embedded Universe: Migrating From IPv4 to IPv6
With the imminent exhaustion of IPv4 address space, and a mounting number of embedded devices pushing the limits, it is time to move to IPv6. Here's how IPv6 corrects three problem with IPv4 and what you need to know to make the shift.
IPv6 on a microcontroller
One of the driving forces behind the move from IPv4 to IPv6 has been low-cost embedded devices, which are going online at an accelerating pace. But shoehorning the full IPv6 suite of protocols into a small 8-bit microcontroller is an extreme sport of the first order. Here are some tips from someone who's done that successfully.
Rush is on to embed Web services
Embedded-systems developers, buffeted by the changes that ubiquitous connectivity has wrought in their world, are realizing the importance of learning new protocols, tools and methodologies to gain a competitive edge.
Implement reliable embedded Ethernet connectivity
There are lots of ways to integrate Ethernet. Depending on the requirements of your system, you must make the proper tradeoffs.
Back to the basics: Improve TCP/IP performance in memory-constrained embedded apps
In this tutorial, Christian Legare takes you through some of the necessary design rules that need to be employed when when porting a TCP/IP stack to an embedded device.
Linux For Web Services Development
Many developers see Linux as a way to do web services development in what is becoming a much more heterogeneous environment than everyone had previously assumed.
Real-Time Ethernet
Popular wisdom says Ethernet is non-deterministic. This articleshows that's not true and better illuminates the issues involved.
Implementing SSL on 8-bit micros
The Secure Sockets Layer protocol is used on every web browser and web server to encrypt secure transactions.But SSL is not just the province of 32-bit microprocessors. It can be used on low-cost 8-bitters as well.
XML: Pros and Cons
XML's biggest advantage is that it provides developers with a tool that concisely and unambiguously defines the format of data records.
Process XML on a chip
As more web services applications exchange XML messages over the network, XML-aware network routers and switches are emerging.
6LoWPAN: The wireless embedded Internet – Part 1: Why 6LoWPAN?
Part 1 of an excerpt from the book “6LoWPAN: The Wireless Embedded Internet” reviews the concept of the Internet of Things – and its subset, the wireless embedded Internet – and answers the question “Why 6LoWPAN?”
Web services for smart objects – Part 1: Overview
Part 1 of an excerpt from the book “Interconnecting Smart Objects with IP: The Next Internet” offers an overview of web services and how they can enable smart objects to be efficiently integrated into existing IT and enterprise business systems.
Transition IPv6 seamlessly in embedded systems
Here's an overview of IPv6 and an introduction to possible transition methods, complete with the implications of transition on an embedded system.
Embedded Systems Bookshelf
Excerpts
Embedded Books Reading Room
Bernard Cole's favorite links to book excerpts.
Reviews
Engineer's Bookshelf
Airport fiction blows. A look at books other engineers are reading and why you should read them, too. Recommend and write a review yourself. E-mail Brian Fuller.
Jack Ganssle's Bookshelf
A list of book reviews by Jack Ganssle, contributing technical editor of Embedded Systems Design and Embedded.com.
Max's Cool Beans
Clive “Max” Maxfield, the editor on Programmable Logic DesignLine, often writes about interesting books.
Products
Tiny IPv6 stack for unlimited device to web connections
Atmel, Cisco and the Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS) announced the availability of uIPv6, one of the world's smallest open-source, IPv6-ready protocol stack, which could enable every device, no matter how limited by power or memory to have an Internet Protocol address.
RTI incorporates IPv6 transport for networked applications
Real-Time Innovations (RTI) has incorporated Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) support into its RTI data distribution service middleware.
Vector Fabrics' vfEmbedded cloud-based tool eases heterogeneous multicore development
vfEmbedded from Vector Fabrics is a cloud-based tool that allows embedded engineers to partition and map software onto complex multicore platforms with ease. vfEmbedded supports specific multicore architectures that have different cores and can assign partitions to specific cores.
Cloud-based M2M platform connects multiple business processes
he Viewbiquity Cloud Interface (VCI) is a unique M2M platform that seamlessly connects multiple business processes, including property management, energy, voice, data and video communications, inventory management, IT infrastructure and tracking.
Low latency PHY aimed at cloud applications
NetLogic Microsystems claims breakthrough innovations in high-speed physical layer SerDes development have resulted in the world's lowest latency 10 GbE PHY solution for next-generation data centers; targets emerging cloud-based applications and data centers.
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