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SASE-Space / ot-openness-comparison

Comparison of openness within various OT platforms
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Reduce opination on Bosch Rexroth wording #16

Open Chaser opened 6 months ago

Chaser commented 6 months ago

Bosch Rexroth is a long competitor of all previous mentioned vendors and they launched their new control platform about five years ago. This platform runs on Linux and the RealTime is enabled with Preempt-RT. It is a very powerful platform because of its open strategy on integrating different apps via snap package manager.

Bosch is far from "open". Its using Ubuntu core which has an has a large initial cost > $50,000 EUR and cost per device per month. Bosh is swalling this cost right now but would not expect it to be forever.

Everyone can create snaps and integrate those as apps even for modular machine designs but also via an open app-store-like ctrlX-World platform. It is also possible to add Matlab snaps, HMI snaps, Node-Red, Codesys V3.5, CtrlX Plc and many more.

Recommend remove the word - "open app store" Plenty of these stores exist and none of them are open. The only app-store thats actualy open is https://openindustry4.com/

Saying Bosch is open is like saying Apple Store is open. Considering the current events with EU this is proven to not be the case.

Further to this SNAPs have to be signed by Ubuntu this means that IP is not protected as Ubuntu perform scans on the binary. There are plenty of available resources about how the Linux people think about Ubuntu and SNAPs.

Recommendation: "The platform allows for multiple applications to be developed and deployed via Bosch Application Store, CtrlX. The Operating System that CtrlX is built on is Ubuntu Core (18/20), therefore applications are packages as "snaps". Snaps main feature is there immutability and packaging is based on cgroups. Its possible for anyone to create a SNAP and integrate with the machine therefore offering flexibility to combine multiple applications such as Matlab snaps, HMI snaps, Node-Red, Codesys V3.5 etc. However for SNAPs to be secure they have to be signed which is only done by submitting the application to Ubuntu itself (therefore exposing your intellectual property).

Those snaps can interact via a powerful DataLayer which is similar to ADS from the TwinCAT world but more modern and with a RealTime capable fast lane. Bosch Rexroth also offers drives where the ctrlX Core can be directly integrated, which enables a machine manufacturer to build machines with a very small footprint. Their operating system CtrlX-OS is available for many different platforms.

Same as above with Ubuntu Core OS isn't as freely available. Qualitification of Ubuntu Core vs something like Debian pre-empt or Red Hat Edge is not easy. Investment in Bosch isn't an open solution at all its "lock-in" at the software layer instead.

zantiu commented 6 months ago

@seehma thoughts? PR: https://github.com/SASE-Space/ot-openness-comparison/pull/12

zantiu commented 6 months ago

Referenced appstore: https://www.oi4appstore.com/

seehma commented 6 months ago

Nice, that is community at work! i have used them in a very early stage and then we had to stop because we had too much work on the TwinCAT side. I just wanted to add them, to complete the list, no preference here on my side.

About the snaps: The only thing i know is that you, as a company can make your own snaps, which you can use on your machine without being forced to validate them from a second source, which is a great thing. Also how those snaps can communicate over this layer is, what i think a great thing because then you have to make clear interfaces between each of those snaps. This layer is also communicating via Ethernet to other CtrlX instances so machine-to-machine communication is possible.

About the cost of Ubuntu Core OS: Iam not an expert regarding costs but i dont think that anybody is buying that system if it will cost that lot of $ || €, so they will have to take this on their budget list.

Open-App-Store: Absolutely right @Chaser, i think this happened because of my bad english :-(

Hardware-lock-in: Iam not sure if that is right, The CtrlX OS will be able to run on different hw-platforms and with ethercat you can use every hardware on the fieldbus side you wanna use. (i did not write "free", did i?) I made a question mark on every point which says licensing or money or something like this, because i dont know how the costs of that system will evolve. Will add those changes when i get more links to their sources, ok?

zantiu commented 5 months ago

Mind making a commit for the updates?

seehma commented 5 months ago

sure! just a bit busy atm.

zantiu commented 5 months ago

No problem, the issue can stay open for a while.

seehma commented 5 months ago

@Chaser are you sure that i have to submit a snap for the ctrlx world to Ubuntu? This sounds kinda weird to me...

parthi2929 commented 1 month ago

The only app-store thats actualy open is https://openindustry4.com/

@Chaser O4A seems to advocate for interoperability at higher semantic layer via AAS.. but more than that, its membership fee alone costs at least 2500 Eur..