Software Deployment

Smartphone applications

With mobile phones becoming stand-alone computing platforms, opportunities emerge for running shrink-wrapped applications and advanced data services. To support these usage models, device OEMs choose open software platforms, enabling installation and deployment of software components after the phone passes into users' possession. As with desktop and server software (applications and middleware), the mobile phone OS then handles installation, invocation, and management of these components

Shrink-wrapped software challenge

Deploying mobile software as shrink-wrapped applications can introduce challenges usually absent from embedded software:

  • Mobile OSes and OS versions can require different application SKUs and installation procedures. Reaching critical mass in the marketplace can mean developing and maintaining dozens or even hundreds of SKUs to support different mobile environments.
  • Mobile network operators (MNOs), mobile phone users, and other mobile ecosystem participants can install other software on a given device that conflicts with the newly deployed software.
  • Security policy and installation options for the new software are constrained by choices made when the OS was originally integrated with the device.
  • The mix of pre-load, in-channel, Firmware Over the Air (FOTA), and end-user manual software installation results in software change happening throughout the value chain. This sequence of events can expose capability gaps in each method, frustrating users, increasing support costs, and slowing time-to-volume.
Software Deployment

Software Deployment

Leverage mobile virtualization for delivery and installation

The integration of the OKL4 Microvisor with a mobile device paves the way for virtual machine-based installation of new software as an alternative to OS specific installation. Virtual machine-based installation supports delivery of software components to mobile devices with better reliability, security, management capability, and reduced cost of component development and support.
The OKL4 Microvisor supports a range of software component granularity including virtual machines (VMs) and lightweight execution environments.
Deploying new software as VMs or lightweight execution environments within OKL4 cells offers the following benefits:

  • New software or software versions deploy together with compatible OSes or lightweight execution environments, avoiding version conflicts and complex dependencies. A single SKU and version of the cell can be used on devices with different base OSes and OS versions.
  • New software loads are isolated from user application environments, minimizing or eliminating incompatibility with existing applications.
  • Security measures and mechanisms provided by OKL4 can be applied specifically to new cells containing deployed applications.
  • MNOs, content owners, enterprise IT, and other controlling parties can remotely monitor, disable or uninstall applications deployed as OKL4 VMs or lightweight cells, with zero impact on the end-user personal environment.

▲ Back to Top