Bitdove OTA update management is the process of remotely updating the entire root file system, performing a firmware update, or an application update over the air. This means that the update does not need to be locally managed by an on-site technician with a USB external storage or other method requiring physical proximity to the device in the field. In a product with CAN-bus-connected devices, performing a manual update locally could be even more complicated and if you need a special dedicated interface then it can be costly and you can only perform the update in a limited number of authorised places.
There are different levels of OTA update management - from ones for mobile devices, to IoT devices in both consumer and industrial settings.
An OTA update manager for a fleet of IoT devices has many advantages:
Having a best of breed system in place for remotely updating, whether it’s hosted or on-premise, also means that a whole host of benefits can be made available to IoT-enabled devices.
These benefits include:
Atomic updates delivered to ensure that the target device receives precisely the right update. Partial updates, also known as delta updates, can be delivered to save on bandwidth in large fleets or where cellular connectivity such as LTE 4G.
An update roll back mechanism can be put in place to prevent a device from failing or “bricking” cause by a loss of power. Such a bricking would require physical replacement of the device in the field. In this scenario, design an A/B rootFS and kernel active and passive partition design for OTA update rollback.
Devices that are added to the fleet can be pre-authorised, categorised and filtered based on certain attributes such as device type and geography; and the OTA updates manager can be integrated with public cloud platforms such as Linode, Microsoft Azure IoT, Google IoT Core or AWS IoT, and/or an enterprise ERP system via a RESTful API for frictionless enterprise device management.
The personnel that can provision or interact with the IoT device fleet can be strictly controlled based on their respective roles (RBAC). This means that, for example, in a large project, a developer may be able to test a software release with a small number of devices, but would not be authorised to deploy that “test” software to production for the whole clients.
OTA update management is used across industries from electrification to consumer electronics. It allows IoT product management teams to launch new IoT products into the field and extend their value by adding new features at a later date.
Think of the Tesla model and you will see that many enterprises and industries are now inspired to create new business models and subscription revenue opportunities by adding new and valuable software features to the already deployed hardware. The paradigm has shifted and software is becoming more pervasive in the engineering and design of products that were traditionally analogue. Think of a robotic vacuum cleaner in the home and you will get the picture of what is emerging even in traditional engineering companies.
In conclusion, a system for OTA update should be robust and secure, and it is better to look for a best of breed OTA update solution, rather than building it home grown as this can be fragile and insecure. An OTA update management system that is based on open source provides superior flexibility, avoids vendor lock-in and ensures community support which results in higher standards of security and continuous innovation.