@Cisco. Welcome! By Rennie Allen, Cisco FAE. Welcome to the Machine By Rennie Allen, Cisco FAE. Q Volume 1 Issue 1

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1 @Cisco QNX Software Systems, 900 East Hamilton Ave., Campbell CA, Q Volume 1 Issue 1 Welcome! I N S I D E T H I S I S S U E 1 Welcome 1 Welcome to the Machine 2 The QNX/Cisco Partnership 3 QNX::Lexicon 4 QNX::Schedule 4 QNX::Solve 5 QNX::Commerce QNX and Cisco have had a productive relationship for over 10 years Welcome to the premier edition of newsletter. QNX and Cisco have had a productive relationship for over 10 years; and while the launch of this newsletter may have been a long-time coming, we hope you ll find this quarterly communication a useful aid in getting full value from the worlds most advanced operating system. While many folks reading this are already familiar with QNX, some may be some of you may be saying to yourself Q what? Couldn t they afford to buy a vowel?. For those of you in this category, I will offer a brief technical introduction to QNX in the article Welcome to the Machine, and Kat Hsu (Cisco Account Manager) will provide an overview of our long-term partnership in the article The QNX/Cisco Partnership. Our regular feature QNX::Lexicon will keep track of the latest Cisco lingo for QNX based products, while the other regular features QNX::Schedule, QNX::Solve and QNX::Commerce will offer insights into the various undertakings and procedures that are designed help you deliver your QNX based projects on-time, under-budget and with full support. Please see Welcome! on page 2 Welcome to the Machine We all know what an Operating System (O/S) is, in fact, you are using one to read the newsletter; but did you know that most desktop operating systems are based on architectures that date back to the 1960 s? We all know that the music in the 60 s was great, but unfortunately software architectures don t necessarily age as well as the products of the British invasion. The QNX operating system was born about 10 years after tie dye became unfashionable (1982). QNX (pronounced Kew Nicks) was designed around an architecture that was (at that time) considered the epitome of O/S architecture: the microkernel. The microkernel architecture is the result of applying the computer science principles of data abstraction and encapsulation to the Please see It s the architecture! on page 3

2 Page The Cisco/QNX partnership By Kat Hsu, Cisco Account Manager You are reading our first QNX newsletter for Cisco! We intend to use this medium to keep our existing and potential users abreast of product news, design tips and interesting QNX applications. Please send any feedback and requests to Kat Hsu (khsu@qnx.com) or Rennie Allen (rallen@qnx.com). The goal of our bold move is to accelerate development, and build up a community of QNX experts and applications... Business Highlights In September 2007, we announced that we made the strategic decision to open our source code and development process: QNX Publishes Neutrino Source Code and Opens Development Process (See The goal of our bold move is to accelerate development and build up a community of QNX experts and applications. Ultimately our customers will benefit from leveraging the huge pool of open source applications either ported over or developed natively on QNX, while enjoying the unparalleled QNX RTOS has to offer. I d like to give you an update on what's been happening since then. In particular, we have released more source packages that might be of interest to you. See If you have any questions, please contact me. Welcome! continued from page 1 These regular features are intended to provide information on upcoming events, tips and tricks for solving technical problems, and roadmaps for insuring smooth QNX based product introductions. Of course, there is much more capacity available, than can be contained in a newsletter, so this publication should be considered a starting point, if you are interested in learning more about how to obtain or employ QNX technology. If there are issues that demand personal attention, do not hesitate to contact either Kat or myself (Rennie) either via or telephone (our contact information is always available on the last page of this newsletter). So that basically sums it up. Kat and I hope you find this document useful, and welcome any feedback you may have. We look forward to meeting with you in person.

3 @Cisco Page 3 QNX::Lexicon IOS-XR/IOX: Fully modular IOS operating system built on QNX kernel IOS Classic: Original run-to-completion, single address space executive ION/Modular IOS: Partially modular IOS operating system built on QNX kernel Momentics : Integrated Development Environment based on Eclipse System Profiler: Software logic analyzer, part of the Momentics IDE Critical Process Monitor: High availability toolkit for QNX Adaptive Partitioning : Scheduling domain partitioning for QNX operating system Transparent Distributed Processing: Technology that allows the QNX kernel to span loosely coupled processors To see an example of how Adaptive Partitioning is used, download the whitepaper from: It s the architecture! continued from page 1 architecture of the operating system (rather than only the applications). Since there was hardware available that could actually enforce the concept of encapsulation, the leading thinkers on O/S design immediately realized that this hardware protection mechanism could be taken to it s ultimate utility by paring the O/S kernel down to the minimum number of functions necessary, and then encapsulating all other functions in their own individual protection domain (i.e. virtual machine). This brings us to the two founders of QNX Software Systems, Dan Dodge, and Gordon Bell. Dan and Gord identified two key technologies which they felt their new O/S must embrace. The first, of course, is the microkernel architecture, and the second the IBM PC. Unfortunately, the PC was not quite up to the task of fulfilling the ultimate goal of the microkernel (process isolation); however, Dan and Gord, visionaries that they are, decided to implement QNX using the PC s segment registers to implement a poor man s protection system. They (rightly) assumed that it was only a matter of time until the PC had the necessary hardware protection mechanisms. Thus, in 1982 the world s first commercial microkernel operating system was born. In the intervening 28 years QNX has perfected the microkernel architecture, achieving performance comparable to a monolithic kernel without compromising the architectural integrity of the pure microkernel design; thus preserving the inherent reliability and security of this architecture. While QNX Software Systems has produced many other innovations over the last 28 years, the pure microkernel design has been the foundation for nearly all of them. QNX Software Systems has perfected the microkernel architecture, achieving performance comparable to a monolithic kernel without compromising the architectural integrity

4 Page QNX::Schedule (upcoming events) Upcoming Presentations Toolapalooza April 17, 4pm in SJC9-1F-Cakebreak Using QNX Momentics IDE to debug and optimize your system, and real life Cisco examples Upcoming Tradeshows Toolapalooza, April 16 and 17 in SJC9 Embedded Systems Conference, April at San Jose Convention Center Available Presentation Topics These are some of the presentations and demo s we have done in the past. If anyone is of interest, please contact Kat to schedule one for your team. Using Momentics to debug your multicore system How to use the NetBSD framework pkgsrc to port open source apps onto Momentics Using CPU and memory partitioning techniques to build a secure and highly reliable system QNX::Solve So, there s this thing called gdb... you may have heard of it? We all know how useful a source level debugger is, and it is a basic tool that all software engineers expect to have at their disposal but source level debuggers have been around for 30 years, and tools builders didn t pack up and head for the retirement village once they created the source level debugger. There are many tools designed to make the engineers life easier when it comes to tracking down those elusive bugs, a couple of examples are: - Software logic analyzers o These tools allow you to see a history of all the events that led up to some point (usually the point at which some problem is noticed) - Non-intrusive, interactive system observation tools (e.g. dtrace) QNX supplies a software logic analyzer called System Profiler, as well as other tools like code coverage analysis and code profiling. You can download an evaluation of Momentics from: We are also working to have a community project bring dtrace to QNX. Details on what we have so far are here: 11/08/i-trace-you-trace-what-about-dtrace We also have formal training available for Momentics, but if you have some basic questions, you can me at rallen@qnx.com. QNX Momentics Integrated Development Environment.

5 @Cisco Page 5 QNX::Commerce By Kat Hsu, Cisco Account Manager We have a new project and want to evaluate QNX. How do we go about doing it? Please contact Kat ASAP! We d like to understand your requirements and set up a meeting for a product presentation and demo. You can also obtain evaluation licenses of our tools and RTOS. Based on your needs, we will provide or help you with benchmarks. That s it. Simple, straight-forward, no fine print How much does it cost? There are two main cost items: tools and royalties. You need to have the QNX Momentics tools for development (unless you will be using IOS-XR or ION where you have to use the Cisco proprietary toolchain). When your product is close to FCS, we will work with Cisco Global Supplier Management (GSM) Group and your project manager to set a royalty schedule based on your product s volume forecast and QNX components that are used. That s it. Simple, straight-forward, no fine print. You can ask our GSM contact Wayne Augustine. Note that our business model is very customer-centric since we make most of our money only when you ship products. We care. How do I get support? We provide the options of Standard or Priority Support Plan when you purchase our tools. See These plans would let you obtain bug fixes, and get help. 900 East Hamilton Ave. Suite 100 Campbell, CA Phone: Rennie: Kat: Fax: khsu@qnx.com rallen@qnx.com Office: Mobile: Office: Mobile: If it s a quick question, Rennie can usually help. But beware he gets dozens of fan mail each day. How do I get training? Contact Kat! No, I don t do training but I have connections. We provide on-site training for Cisco and once we get about 8+ students we can set one up. Over the past two years, we have trained over a hundred of you guys and gals and the feedback has been very good. See this link to get an idea of the training modules: