DFI and Canonical offer risk-free system updates and reduced software lead times for the IoT ecosystem

Feb. 25, 2021 – DFI and Canonical signed the Ubuntu IoT Hardware Certification Partner Program. DFI is the world’s first industrial computer manufacturer to join the program aimed at offering Ubuntu-certified IoT hardware ready for the over-the-air software update. The online update mechanism of and the authorized DFI online application store combines with DFI’s products’ application flexibility, to reduce software and hardware development time to deploy new services. DFI’s RemoGuard IoT solution will provide real-time monitoring and partition-level system recovery through out-of-band management technology. In addition to the Ubuntu online software update, RemoGuard avoids service interruption, reduces maintenance personnel costs, and response time to establish a seamless IoT ecosystem.

From the booming 5G mobile network to industrial robot applications, a large number of small base stations, edge computing servers, and robots will be deployed in outdoor or harsh industrial environments. Ubuntu Core on DFI certified hardware and Remoguard brings the reassurance that no software update will bring risks and challenges of on-site repair.

“By cooperating with Canonical, and joining the IoT Hardware Certification Partner Program DFI aims to give IoT developers shorter software introduction timelines and to promote the role of software in embedded by lowering the risk of system updates Additional consultancy services offered through the cooperation can help enterprise customers quickly build solutions, including software and hardware,” said Steven Tsai, President of DFI.

“DFI and Canonical and partner work closely to deliver the best Ubuntu experience on gateways and motherboards,” commented Tom Canning, VP of IoT and devices, at Canonical. “Developers will find it a productive pre-certified environment for a faster route to market. Enterprises will benefit from the security and flexibility offered by 10 years support, secure boot, full disk encryption, secure device recovery, and OTA upgrade out of the box.”

DFI’s first wave of products to pass the IoT Hardware Certification Partner Program has three products: EC70A-KU, a fanless embedded system with a very wide range of applications, GHF51, the world’s first mini-industrial motherboard equipped with AMD Ryzen™ R1000 processor, and EC90A-GH, the fanless embedded system based on GHF51.

The certification will guarantee that Ubuntu and Ubuntu Core can run optimally on the platform and will continue to run for up to 10 years.  Ubuntu Core, a minimal version of Ubuntu, is a modern, safe, and reliable IoT operating system designed for IoT devices deployed production environment. It provides over-the-air, transactional software updates through a cloud-based CI/CD (Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment) service which ensures that operations remain safe and uninterrupted. Ubuntu Core is maintained by Canonical to provide security updates to meet IoT requirements for high security, high reliability, and high availability. Ubuntu Core 18 has up to ten years of security update maintenance.

The Snap application format, on which Ubuntu Core is built, adopts the read-only file system SquashFS and imposes strict restrictions on permissions to increase the security and stability of the operating system and applications. Using a white-label snap store, companies build a dedicated software repository, that gives developers a modern software experience from code and test to large-scale deployments, and remote device management. Not only does it help companies reduce their development and maintenance costs, but it also allows them to explore new software-based business models through its app store features. Adding to the cloud-native developer experience Ubuntu Core combines with LXD and MicroK8s to bring the flexibility and low cost of Edge Micro Clouds to any business.

EC70A-KU is based on the efficient seventh-generation Intel® Core™ i7/i5/i3 processor, providing top processing performance, fanless cooling technology, and is designed for solutions with limited space and high-performance requirements, such as emerging Autonomous Mobile Robot (AMR, Autonomous Mobile Robot). GHF51 is the world’s first mini-industrial motherboard equipped with a high-performance AMD Ryzen™ R1000 processor. It has unprecedented processing power and flexible expandability. It is more suitable for industrial applications, edge computing, AI vision, and other versatility fields.

DFI’s exclusive RemoGuard out-of-band management technology is highly complementary to Ubuntu’s Snap software package technology. When the SSD maintains regular operation, the operating system partition can be repaired an unlimited number of times remotely. The SSD life cycle can be actively predicted to determine accurate replacement timing to avoid time-consuming, on-site maintenance, and dramatically reduce application services’ downtime. From industrial automation, medical, transportation, gaming, energy, to the 5G mobile network that has attracted much attention in recent years, RemoGuard is the most vital cornerstone and solid foundation for DFI solutions.

About DFI

Founded in 1981, DFI is a global leading provider of high-performance computing technology across multiple embedded industries. With its innovative design and premium quality management system, DFI’s industrial-grade solutions enable customers to optimize their equipment and ensure high reliability, long-term life cycle, and 24/7 durability in a breadth of markets including factory automation, medical, gaming, transportation, smart energy, mission-critical, and intelligent retail.

About Canonical

Canonical is the publisher of Ubuntu, the OS for most public cloud workloads as well as the emerging categories of smart gateways, self-driving cars, and advanced robots. Canonical provides enterprise security, support, and services to commercial users of Ubuntu. Established in 2004, Canonical is a privately held company.