OSGi DevCon - Innovation Through an Apps Competition

University Apps Competition:

An Innovative Way to Educate, Motivate and Promulgate OSGi

Principles and Development

David Foote

CTO

Hitachi CTA

Norcross, GA

[email protected]

March 23, 2011

Presentation

to:

Copyright: Hitachi Communication Technologies America, Inc. 2March 18, 2011

Apps Competition Objectives

Hitachi was (is) interested in several objectives:

(priority order)

● Innovation of OSGi-based applications, especially using embedded

devices in home, business, vehicles interacting with “cloud” services

– As a common platform in many domains (automation, energy, security,

entertainment/media, health, transportation, etc.)

– Create synergistic, converged applications across these domains

● Expand understanding and utilization of OSGi

– One way is to educate and motivate university students

● Indentify “issues” for wider adoption (i.e. “opportunities”)

● Long standing investment in working with and supporting universities

– Grants

– Funded research

– Visiting researchers

– Collaborative research


“Big Picture” Goals: Market Opportunity

Where do

you want

me to put

it?

Broadband Subscribers Saturate, “Churn”, Commodity Triple Play

Motivation: New Services, New Revenue

Technology Advances (with associated lower costs)

“Standardization”: UPnP, DLNA, WiFi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, Zwave, G.hn, etc.

Moore’s Law (processing)

Kryder’s Law (memory)

Butter’s Law (optical bandwidth)

Broadband proliferation (fiber,

LTE, WiMax, VDSL, DOCSIS 3.0)

Enhanced CPE (IP STBs, IP TVs,

DSL gateways, home routers,

cable modems/GW, LTE/WiMax

GWs, new CPE like “Plugs”, etc.)

Industry or Government

Initiatives Smart Grid

M2M

Connected Vehicle

Smart, connected appliances


Convergence Competition

Build on an Existing, Unique Apps Competition

● Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech)

– ranked in top 10 in almost all major engineering disciplines

● Convergence Innovation Competition http://cic.gatech.edu

– Annual event for over 5 years culminates in judging and awards in late April

Past sponsors have included AT&T, Alcatel Lucent, Nokia Siemens,

Verizon Wireless, Yahoo

Past years primarily focused on mobile apps, most recently based on IMS

Some past winners have also garnered industry competition awards or have

moved on to venture status or commercialization

– Open to all students; usually multi-disciplinary teams

– Converged Services, Media, Networks, & Converged Client-Server platforms

convergence of services (ex: maps + blog + phone),

service delivery platforms (eg: Internet + IMS + TV),

access technologies (3G + WiFi + IPTV),

client platforms (eg: smartphone + set top box + laptop + embedded devices)

as well as cloud, smart grids, smart homes, and connected vehicles


2011 Competition Categories

Four categories for 2011:

● Cloud to Home: Hitachi and Cisco

● Interactive Television: Motorola Mobility

● Social Commerce: NextJump

● Campus Community: Georgia Tech Office of Information Technology

Cloud to Home

applications which connect devices in the home to cloud based services

areas of focus include: home automation, home energy management,

security, media streaming and sharing, and home health

based on OSGI deployable applications and services

variety of existing technologies like DLNA, UPnP, Z-wave, Zigbee, etc.

combinations of services available from carriers, content distributors,

application service providers, and social networking sites


Major Participants & Roles

Roles and Involvement

● Hitachi provided

– SDK for OSGi development (Eclipse based with Hitachi plug-ins)

– OSGi application life cycle and deployment management system (DMS)

– Embedded device software for CPE:

OSGi framework (OSGiA certified, commercially supported, optimized

for embedded devices: memory footprint, performance, etc.)

JVM/CVM (commercially supported, IPR protected with Sun/Oracle,

optimized for embedded devices: memory footprint, performance, etc.)

“Common” or “Utility” Bundles (examples: UPnP, DLNA, Zwave, etc.)

– Funding

– Training and Support

● Supported by ActionTec (home routers and plug computers and support)

● Supported by Verizon Telecom (home automation and energy devices and

training)


Education: Students & Professors

Pre-Competition Education Process

Georgia Tech has a sequence of classes with “apps development” focus

Virtually all students already quite familiar with Java development

Hitachi and Verizon Telecom provided business case & applications

deployment architecture presentations (100+ senior/grad level students)

Hitachi provided OSGi development overview, sample implementations,

and instruction on use of SDK (150+ senior/grad level students)

Hitachi provided more in-depth training on use of DMS, CPE software

and SDK to RNOC personnel (act as Tier 1 support to competing teams)

Hitachi provided demos of existing commercial sample applications on

the Georgia Tech campus for several days (“open house”)


Wider R&D Activity

Synergy of R&D Activities

Numerous research activities within the Georgia Tech community on a

much wider set of technologies or interest areas than can practically be

found with “commercial partners”

– Home Automation

– Energy Monitoring and Management including Smart Grid and M2M aspects

– Telemedicine, Home Health, Home Wellness, In-place Care, etc.

– Monitoring and Security

– Connected/Aware/Intelligent Home including M2M aspects

– Connected/Aware/Intelligent Vehicle including M2M aspects

– Human Factors: UIs, Augmented Reality, Behavior Analysis

– Social Networking

– Presence Conferencing

● Primary focus for 2011 (first year of this new category) is first few items in

above list but already synergies starting with wider set of R&D interests

especially look forward to 2012


Application Examples

Competing Applications in Cloud to Home Category

Teams still in development

Details not publicly available yet except to sponsors

Judging and Awards in late April (first public “revealing”)

Student interest in pre-competition phases focused on:

– Home automation and energy management

– Home monitoring/security (existing research: ex: pattern recognition)

– Home health


Feedback & Lessons Learned

OSGi is Not “The Issue”

Quickly understood and implemented at least basic OSGi development

methods (based on existing Java knowledge and experience)

– Definite room for further “education” and improvement in areas like:

better modularity (up front architecture work is important step easily overlooked)

dependencies

optimizing client-server design (critical when dealing with embedded devices)

Key barriers were not OSGi but other underlying technologies like DLNA,

UPnP, Zigbee, Zwave, Bluetooth, etc.

– “pay to play” technologies (no easy entry for universities or students)

– mostly “stove pipe” implementations (specific partners integrate together)

(not really as open “open standards” as might be presumed)

– some specs/standards are moving targets

– implementations and versions are not easily “matched” or interoperable

– in some cases, even “version discovery” is challenging

– UI issues: where is it? PC-less? consistency issues across “screens”


Next Steps & Conclusion

Completion of 2011 Competition in late April

Engage any “interesting” Apps Teams for further collaboration

Post Mortem and Areas for Improvement

Expanded engagement with professors, researchers, students

in wider topics of research within the Georgia Tech community

Expand coursework time on principles of OSGi development

(grad level classes) in the “apps” track sequence of classes

and possibly Java related courses

Engage other “partners” in the effort

Look forward to 2012


David Foote

CTO

Hitachi CTA

[email protected]


EclipseCon 2011 – OSGi DevCon 2011

or . . . . how some of the basic principles of Johnny Appleseed (educate, motivate,

promulgate, innovate) were achieved when we helped create and implement an

OSGi-based application development competition at a top 10 science and

engineering university. This presentation will summarize:

a) the inception of the competition;

b) the roles of the major participants;

c) the process of educating the students and professors on OSGi;

d) feedback from the students and professors on the process, the competition and

their assessment of the OSGi environment;

e) how the competition took advantage of other wider R&D activities in the university

community especially for health/wellness technology, smart home technology and

human factors research;

f) some examples of the creative apps generated by the teams;

g) lessons learned: how well (or not) the senior level and graduate level students in

the competing teams learned and applied OSGi development principles as well as

implemented compliant apps; . . . and finally . . .

h) how the lessons learned can be used to help promote and expand the adoption of

OSGi in the wider apps development and software development communities

OSGi DevCon - Innovation Through an Apps Competition

Technology

Transcript of OSGi DevCon - Innovation Through an Apps Competition