In this ever growing digital market, the gadgets, devices, sensors, actuators, etc are being built to be smarter, act independently and be part of the interconnected world. This growing trend is well appreciated.
With the emergence of different players, availability of digital equipment & software, the adoption of the technology to make things automated, yet keep it simple, has increased multi-folds over a period of time. Keeping yourself updated with the cutting edge technologies, ensuring your offering is up to date with the latest technologies and keeping up with the pace of the competition, has been the need of the hour, to survive in this competitive world.
Releasing a product / offering to the market is only the beginning. All the efforts put in, till the time of release, will go in vain, if the product fails to upgrade itself, provide bug fixes, add new features to meet the latest requirements and catch up with emerging trends. This is where, Firmware Management proves to be tricky, critical for sustainability and yet plays a crucial role in the success of the product / offering.
There are many players, who handle Firmware Management in different ways. Server pushing the updates to the Client devices (Ex: App updates to Smartphones, Set-Top boxes, etc), Client requesting the Server for updated software (OS updates, patches, Anti-Virus updates, etc), and few more are various means of handling updates.
Over The Air (OTA) is one of the most adopted mechanism to distribute the software and perform the updates.
Continuing the discussion on Device Management, this blog post highlights the Advanced Device Management features:
- Firmware Update
- Firmware Roll Back
- Factory Reset
Firmware Update:
In the earlier section, we had referred to Firmware Management scenarios, being initiated by Server and by Client. Two of the Watson IoT Recipes, depict both the scenarios in detail.
The Watson IoT Recipe '
Device Initiated Firmware Upgrade' refers to the scenario, where a Device is registered to WIoTP as a managed device. The Device keeps publishing the events to the Platform Dashboard. Here, the Device keeps snooping the defined Firmware Repository at regular intervals. If the Firmware Repository has a newer release, then, the Device initiates Firmware Upgrade operation. The
source code for the same is written in Java and is made available on the
Github repository.
Another Watson IoT Recipe '
Platform Initiated Firmware Upgrade', refers to the scenario in continuation with the setup of '
Device Initiated Firmware Upgrade', with the Application now connected to the WIoTP as well. The Application subscribes to the events published by the Device and publishes the commands to be executed on the Device, through the WIoTP.
Here, the Application snoops the Firmware Repository at regular intervals, to check, if a newer version of Firmware is available. If yes, then, the Application initiates the Firmware Upgrade operation and triggers the command to the Device, through the WIoTP. As the operation progresses, the events published by the Device are subscribed by the Application for it's consumption. The
source code for the same is written in Java and is made available on the
Github repository.
The above section helped you with Firmware Upgrade scenarios, both from Device side and from the Platform side. While it is important to upgrade the Device(s) to the latest available Firmware, the operation may not always complete successfully, owing to a lot of components (Network failure, poor bandwidth, inadequate space, forced and unforced aborts, etc) that influence the outcome. In such cases, the priority is to retain the existing setup intact, without any loss to the data and configurations. In case of corrupt systems, a facility that allows you to start all over again, will be of great help.
The Watson IoT Recipe '
Roll Back & Factory Reset' walks you through both the scenarios and helps you to be better equipped to handle the failed upgrade scenarios. The Recipe showcases, how you can safely put back the current setup in case of a failed upgrade and how to handle a scenario, where the setup is completely corrupt ( numerous changes to the configurations and cases where you are unable to perform Roll Back operation) using the Factory Reset. The
source code on the
Github repository is written in Java and should give you a glimpse into the source code part.
This series on Device Management in WIoT Platform, split in three recipes, successfully showcased the Firmware Update scenarios, by having them demonstrated with step by step process in the following set of Watson IoT Recipes:
