MontaVista
Industry | Internet, Software |
---|---|
Founded | Menlo Park, California (September 7, 1998)[1] |
Founder | Jim Ready |
Headquarters | , |
Products | MontaVista Linux MVShield |
Owner | Private equity investors |
Number of employees | Over 250[2] (March 9, 2021) |
Website | www |
MontaVista Software is a company that develops
Company Overview and History
Currently, since 2022, MontaVista is headquartered in San Jose, California, having main branch offices in Northern Europe, Japan, South Korea and India.
The company was founded in 1999 by James "Jim" Ready (an embedded software industry pioneer, formerly at Mentor Graphics and creator of Versatile Real-Time Executive (VRTX) among other leading products of their time).
MontaVista has since inception been focused on bringing real-time preemption into Linux and making Linux suitable for embedded usage. In the early years, MontaVista was also pioneering the Carrier Grade Linux (CGL) -initiative, and has followed the CGL-principles ever since.
On November 10, 2009
Products
Linux
MontaVista has been providing Linux-based products only throughout its lifetime. Because of this specific focus, the MontaVista engineering team has built a very specific skillset and expertise around the Linux operating system the GNU userland. This focus has been specifically around embedded Linux (the Pro, Mobilinux, CGE, MVL, and CGX) families, but since 2019 MontaVista has publicly been promoting also enterprise Linux, in the MVShield line of products.
MontaVista also provides professional services and customization across its product range, marketed as MVxPert, and security-specific packaged services sold as MVSecure. These services can be provided also on other Linux distributions beyond MontaVista Linux.
MontaVista Linux (formerly named Hard Hat Linux) is a
MontaVista sells subscriptions, which consist of software, documentation, and technical support. The software includes a Linux kernel and toolchain aimed at a specific hardware configuration, collectively called a Linux Support Package (LSP) or later a Market-Specific Distribution (MSD), and other integrated tools including the Eclipse-based DevRocket integrated development environment (IDE)[5] up until the CGX 2.4 product version when the IDE has not been delivered as part of the standard product.
Initially the Linux distribution was available in three editions, each aimed at a different
MontaVista's Linux products, Professional Edition (Pro), Mobilinux and CGE, were initially based on a binary build chain and delivered to customers as RPM packages with rebuilding capability.
However, since May 12, 2009, when MontaVista announced MontaVista Linux 6 (MVL6), MontaVista has been using a Yocto Project-like approach for building Linux products, initially based on bitbake and OpenEmbedded. It consists of Market Specific Distributions, the MontaVista Integration Platform, Software Development Kit, MontaVista Zone Content Server, and support and services.
There are several differences between the Yocto/OpenEmbedded-aligned MontaVista Linux versions and prior MontaVista Linux products. The main ones are:
- Market Specific Distributions (MSD) – Linux operating systems (userland) optimized for each specific semiconductor vendor's hardware.
- MontaVista Integration Platform – based on BitBake, analogous to make, which analyzes a set of directives and then builds a task dependency tree to satisfy a user command. BitBake then executes the defined tasks to completion.
- MontaVista Zone Content Server – accessed from behind a .
The current, CGX line of products for Montavista Linux, are based on the Yocto Project principles of development, and as delivered to customers essentially resembling the freely available version of Yocto Project/Poky to facilitate ease reuse of expertise in Yocto Project -development.
OpenCGX
Project OpenCGX is an open and free to use embedded
Carrier Grade Express (CGX)
MontaVista Linux Carrier Grade eXpress (CGX) is MontaVista's main operating system product that provides a reliable, secure and serviceable Carrier Grade Linux with high flexibility and quality. CGX delivers a comprehensive platform that keeps up the latest requirements of smart devices such as application portability, dynamic configuration, field maintenance, and real-time performance.
MontaVista CGX approaches a wide range of applications and use cases from 5G networking, telecom, general embedded (medical, automotive, industrial) to Internet of Things (IoT) and Mil-Aero. CGX aims to make the product development procedure more cost- and time-efficient so that the client can fully concentrate on their value-add. In addition, CGX offers maintenance support for over 10 years to ensure long-term success for the customers.
MontaVista CGX complies with CGL spec version 5.0 with key criteria: Availability, Serviceability, Performance and Security, along with Clustering functionality, Standards support and Hardware-interfacing functionality. Furthermore, CGX has achieved Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level 4+ certification, which uniquely gives a security standard process to the end users when acquiring the product.
Services
Custom Hardware Enablement
MontaVista can adapt your Linux product to fit your software and hardware environment. Whether this is Linux based on MontaVista products or an embedded Linux of customer choice. We can develop or validate a BSP for your custom hardware board and all its associated architecture, I/O, memory, storage, network capabilities, etc. This can quicken triaging of hardware and software problems that arise in development and deployment as the diagnosis is done on the specific hardware.
In addition, MontaVista can maintain updates (bug fixes and CVEs) on this custom hardware through our Board Maintenance Program (BMP), MVShield or MVXpert programs. It assures the updates have already been tested and vetted on the hardware. Each of these services can be extended to integrate and maintain additional userland packages not offered in the standard Linux distribution (i.e. MontaVista CGX, Yocto, CentOS, etc.) MontaVista can assist by maintaining or uprevving these specific packages and running it through our robust QA on the customers specific hardware board.
RTOS/Legacy Migration
For teams looking to move away from legacy products using a home grown or commercial real-time operating system (RTOS), migration can seem daunting. MontaVista can help make this transition less complex and tangible as we have worked with customers moving away from RTOS-based systems to Linux. MontaVista has achieved these migrations by reviewing different approaches:
Native Migration - Identify RTOS architecture, schedulers, compilers, and application differences to create the needed code changes
Virtualization - Execute the legacy RTOS applications in KVM or containers (Docker, LxC)
Adaptation - Aim to reuse core parts of your software investment by using adaptation layers, like Mono and Java
The MontaVista Linux toolkit also includes specific code libraries to easily migrate from Wind River Systems' VxWorks and the pSOS operating systems for legacy versions of the products.
System Certification
MontaVista Linux is being used in applications within IT and telecom that need to be certified according to
Legacy products
Several legacy products are available from MontaVista under long-term support agreements.[7]
Mobilinux
MontaVista
Professional Edition
MontaVista Professional Edition (Pro) is for general embedded Linux developers. Pro is for intelligent device markets, including networking and communications, instrumentation and control,
Carrier Grade Edition
MontaVista Linux Carrier Grade Edition (CGE) is a commercial-grade Linux development platform for developers working with
DevRocket
MontaVista DevRocket is a set of
DevRocket is available in two varieties: a Platform Developer Kit (PDK) and Application Developer Kit (ADK). The Platform Developer Kit includes the ability to communicate with a target (RSE, SSH), create and manage file systems, debugging (kgdb), and performance tuning (memory leak, memory use, system profiling). The application developer kit includes a virtual target for developing applications earlier in the development cycle, one-click edit/compile/debug, and performance tuning.[11]
The current versions of Montavista Linux don't package the DevRocket tools suite, but can work together with Open-Source IDEs like Eclipse and the LinuxTools project.
Open source contributions
MontaVista has a history of being a major contributor to the
MontaVista has also spun off independent open source projects based on several of its features, including dynamic power management, high resolution POSIX timers, the pramfs file system,[15] and the openais implementation of the Service Availability Forum's (SA Forum) Application Interface Specification.[16]
Distribution
Other versions of MontaVista Linux are used in devices made by a number of partners, including
Cisco NX-OS is based on HardHat Linux.[21]
Mobile phones
See also
- Green Hills Software
- LynuxWorks
- Versatile Real-Time Executive (VRTX)
- TimeSys
- Cavium Networks
References
- ^ Watch, Wireless (October 18, 2004). "MontaVista claims realtime support for Linux mobile". Theregister.co.uk. Retrieved January 12, 2012.
- ^ "MontaVista company profile". Mvista.com. Retrieved March 9, 2021.
- ^ "MontaVista Software- Commercial Embedded Linux Solutions".
- ^ "MontaVista touts native hard real-time Linux". Archived from the original on September 4, 2012.
- ^ a b "MontaVista official DevRocket page". Mvista.com. Archived from the original on January 5, 2012. Retrieved 2012-01-12.
- ^ "MontaVista official Products page". Mvista.com. Retrieved January 12, 2012.
- ^ MontaVista, Product Lifecycle (March 10, 2021). "Product Lifecycle".
- ^ "MontaVista official Mobilinux details page". Mvista.com. Archived from the original on January 14, 2012. Retrieved 2012-01-12.
- ^ "MontaVista official Professional Edition details page". Mvista.com. Retrieved January 12, 2012.
- ^ "MontaVista official Carrier-Grade Edition details page". Mvista.com. Retrieved January 12, 2012.
- ^ "MontaVista's embedded Linux app dev tools go "all-plugin"". Archived from the original on September 6, 2012.
- ^ "An interview with MontaVista Founder Jim Ready". Archived from the original on January 28, 2013.
- ^ "Updated Linux kernel preemption patches". Lwn.net. Retrieved January 12, 2012.
- ^ "Linux Kernel Development (April 2008)". Archived from the original on June 3, 2008.
- ^ "Linux.com :: MontaVista Contributes to Open Source for CE Linux".
- ^ "About OpenAIS". Openais.org. Archived from the original on March 8, 2012. Retrieved 2012-01-12.
- ^ "MontaVista beefs up Japan presence". Archived from the original on July 10, 2012.
- ^ "Newsroom". Dell. Retrieved January 12, 2012.
- ^ Schwankert, Steven (October 22, 2008). "Instant-on Dell desktop to debut soon | Hardware". InfoWorld. Archived from the original on October 29, 2008. Retrieved 2012-01-12.
- ^ "Latitude ON Launched Today | blog.mvista.com". Mvista.com. September 29, 2009. Archived from the original on December 5, 2010. Retrieved January 12, 2012.
- ^ "Hacking NX-OS Part 3 | Maximum Entropy".
- ^ "Motorola discloses that its new A760 handset uses MontaVista Linux". Archived from the original on January 28, 2013.
- ^ Segan, Sascha (July 26, 2006). "Motorola Outlines Plans for RAZR Successor, The SCPL". PC Magazine. Retrieved June 27, 2008.
- ^ "Linux powers DoCoMo's first 3.5G phone". Archived from the original on July 10, 2012.
- ^ "NEC and Panasonic form mobile phone development joint venture". Archived from the original on July 19, 2012.