News

Java OSGi Framework for M2M/IoT Released

• By John K. Waters
• September 22, 2015

Eurotech, an Italy-based provider of embedded computing platforms, has released a new version of its ESF 3.1 development framework. The company describes ESF, which stands for "Everyware" Software Framework, as "an inclusive and targeted Java OSGi framework for machine-to-machine (M2M) multiservice gateways, smart devices and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions applications."

Eurotech's products range from hardware and firmware to OSes, programming frameworks and external infrastructure -- separately and in combination.

ESF is a Java-based application framework designed to simplify the development of apps for smart M2M edge nodes and multi-service gateways. It comes with a set of common services for Java developers building M2M applications, including I/O access, data services, network configuration and remote management.

Based on the OSGi open specifications for the modular assembly of software built with Java, the framework separates the hardware, the foundation logic, and the business logic. The result, the company says, is common foundation layers that simplify app development by allowing OEMs to focus on application-specific code development. It's a programming environment that, as the company puts it, "wraps the complexity of low-level device management with high-level constructs."

The ESF framework provides an optimized data transmission mechanism among edge nodes (such as sensors, actuators and human-machine interfaces) and cloud platforms through M2M/IoT optimized protocols, such as the OASIS Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol (which is designed to connect "physical world devices" and networks with applications and middleware).

The big upgrade in this release is an extension of the hardware abstraction layer by Java APIs to improve support for hardware interfaces and protocols required by many M2M/IoT projects. "Java developers now will find it a lot easier to interface with Bluetooth, BLE (Bluetooth low energy), GPIO (general-purpose input/output) and RS485 (recommended standard)," the company said in a statement.

ESF is integrated into the company's Everyware Cloud M2M integration platform. The platform connects distributed devices over a cloud service. Version 4.0 was announced earlier this month. The ESF works with the Everyware Cloud Web Console to enable a set of remote device management operations over MQTT, either on demand or on schedule. These include device provisioning, device update, device control, device configuration, device diagnostics and device monitoring. Device drivers are approached as services, implemented using APIs instead of code.

More information is available on the company's Products and Services page.