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Microsoft Built Its Own Custom Linux Kernel For Its New IoT Service (techcrunch.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the do-it-yourself dept.

At a small press event in San Francisco, Microsoft today announced the launch of a secure end-to-end IoT product that focuses on microcontroller-based devices -- the kind of devices that use tiny and relatively low-powered microcontrollers (MCUs) for basic control or connectivity features. TechCrunch reports: At the core of Azure Sphere is a new class of certified MCUs. As Microsoft president and chief legal officer Brad Smith stressed in today's announcement, Microsoft will license these new Azure Sphere chips for free, in hopes to jump-start the Azure Sphere ecosystem. Because it's hard to secure a device you can't update or get telemetry from, it's no surprise that these devices will feature built-in connectivity. And with that connectivity, these devices can also connect to the Azure Sphere Security Service in the cloud. For the first time ever, Microsoft is launching a custom Linux kernel and distribution: the Azure Sphere OS. It's an update to the kind of real-time operating systems that today's MCUs often use.

Why use Linux? "With Azure Sphere, Microsoft is addressing an entirely new class of IoT devices, the MCU," Rob Lefferts, Microsoft's partner director for Windows enterprise and security told me at the event. "Windows IoT runs on microprocessor units (MPUs) which have at least 100x the power of the MCU. The Microsoft-secured Linux kernel used in the Azure Sphere IoT OS is shared under an OSS license so that silicon partners can rapidly enable new silicon innovations." And those partners are also very comfortable with taking an open-source release and integrating that with their products. To get the process started, MediaTek is producing the first set of these new MCUs. These are low-powered, single-core ARM-A7 systems that run at 500MHz and include WiFi connectivity as well as a number of other I/O options.

4 of 199 comments (clear)

  1. Microsoft-secured Linux kernel by Isomorphic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Microsoft-secured Linux kernel."

    I don't have the space to list all the things wrong with that phrase.

    1. Re:Microsoft-secured Linux kernel by LostMyBeaver · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Ok... I'm going to bite.

      I honestly have no problems with other platforms... except maybe Java... and that's because I simply feel completely disconnected from the platform when I'm using Java. I spent 30 more wasted minutes of my life yesterday trying to make WebStart... well web start. But it seems that Oracle seems to think making WebStart work in Chrome is a waste of time.

      I have chosen C# and .NET for many reasons for my current project, I can honestly see no real downside to the platform. It is completely open, it's very often community driven. The tools are far more advanced than for any other platform. The performance isn't quite JavaScript (currently the fastest language out there for anything but static code) but I don't think it could ever be as slow as Python no matter how bad the .NET project messes up. .NET supports many different languages with integration between languages handled as a native feature of the .NET platform as opposed to the who SWIG lifestyle. It probably is the most versatile platform ever made for handling more than just one programming language. Sure, using the C ABI is pretty powerful too, but there has never been a standard for handling object oriented programming that way.

      I also use .NET because it's lovely for coding on Mac and Linux.

      I owned a Windows Phone for a while. It was pretty ok. I think it was extremely well made... with the exception of Microsoft making the stupid ass mistake of trying to force .NET down everyone's throat. No one wanted to rewrite their entire system to support Windows Phone. Even Apple didn't reach critical mass until they released ObjC++ allowing existing code bases to be ported to Mac pretty cleanly,

      I never considered Silverlight an option for anything. I did however write the original port of Flash to Qt for the Qt Embedded platform on Linux. I never liked Flash either. I would rather just extend the web standards to support the features I was missing. I also don't like the video tag. With WebAssembly and WebGL, I can't imagine why any company would ever choose to try and standardize a codec when they could have supported a TPM for web kind of thing and simply supply their own. I'm pretty sure Netflix, HBO, YouTube and others will lose hundreds of millions a year by using Flash or the HTML5 video.

      The only problem I could ever see to .NET was that people seem to dislike it because it's a Microsoft thing.

      I'm heading to Microsoft Build next month because I feel that .NET is worth investing in. I expect it to be around for a while. I expect it to be supported for a while. I expect it to be constantly modernized for quite a while. I expect it remain one of the most open platforms for a while (permissive licensed only, no so called free GPL code). I am hoping to learn a lot of stuff there.

      Oh.. my old bubble was the Qt bubble.

      I guess you're in the Python bubble?

  2. Microsoft's Position by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Linux is worse than cancer"

        -- Steve Ballmer

  3. Linux has won! by PineHall · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Microsoft producing a Linux OS that it will distribute and maintain is amazing! Microsoft has been infected with the Linux cancer. Linux world domination?