Update Factory is a domain independent platform for rolling out
software updates to constrained edge devices.

IoT Platform - Update Factory

Update Factory supports easy and flexible rollout management
for updating a large amount of devices based on different
groups/policies.

Remote Management

Motivations

Update Factory is our artifact content and software update delivery IoT Platform, powered by Eclipse hawkBit, ready to serve your device ecosystem.
Update Factory condenses our solid knowledge of server-side applications, DevOps and expertise with different embedded operating systems customized over the past decade.

Because of our skills and experience with the complete tier of IoT architectures, from embedded devices to web applications and DevOps, we implemented a complete, consistent and scalable pipeline to ensure a solid and robust device management system in development and production.

Device Management

Software updates and general device management are part of the same process. In many situations, we need to know device specific information in advance before provisioning any type of software update. For this reason Update Factory includes functionalities for a device to provision specific local attributes to the update server which can trigger groups of devices to perform an update.

Update Factory is workflow-driven, uploading an artifact to the repository, assigning it to eligible devices, managing a roll-out campaign for a large number of devices, monitoring and reporting the progress of the roll-out and requirements regarding security and reliability are essential steps of the process.

Today there are existing platforms for managing software updates and roll-out campaigns, however all of these platforms are mostly designed for Microcontrollers deployed in large scale.

Update Factory is instead a neutral platform to deliver software updates to embedded platforms featuring application processors running Android or Linux. Kynetics provides an open source implementation for Android clients and also a pure Java, fully open source implementation of the hawkBit DDI API. We also provide a Yocto meta layer which includes SWUpdate, the open source C based project which implements the hawkBit DDI API as well.
Update Factory addresses small to medium volume needs but in a way which is familiar to embedded engineers with flexibility and portability.

domain independent device update diagram

Remotely Update Devices at Scale

Update Factory remotely updates your Android or Linux OS: kernel, userspace system and applications.

Track updates and their versioning
Custom device attributes
Update a single device, or to a small or large groups of devices
Deploy updates immediately or upon a schedule
Split updates into groups of devices and set thresholds (%) to either halt or continue, (minimize risk)
Monitor update progress and device statuses
Gradle plugin for Android Studio, for fast artifact delivery

Embedded OS Updates must be Atomic

With a tightly built update procedure, devices can sustain abrupt power failures with a success-or-fail approach.

Single copy update system for embedded devices with low eMMC footprint
Recovery OS (single copy) to safely update kernel and userspace system, available for both Android and Linux
Double copy (A/B) on higher end devices with larger eMMC footprint
Signed Updates for enhanced security
Possibility to update critical devices locally by USB removable media