Distrix Core Services

Distrix® Core Services is the Distrix runtime environment that deals with exchange of information across software, operating system, hardware, and communication protocols. It enables systems to behave dynamically, allowing components to be interchanged and new functionality to be fielded without requiring operator intervention.

Architecture

Distrix Core Services has a modular architecture:

• The Model Service (object information exchange) provides the underlying distribution mechanism used to exchange information through the Information Model associations of various components.
• The Control Service (system maintenance and information reporting) provides the process and resource management services in software and hardware as well as fault-tolerance and recovery.
• The Update Service (deployment and versioning management) provides the ability to dynamically deliver new or updated agents and/or services to a Distrix-based system, from high-performance computing platforms to simple microcontrollers.

Features

Distributed. As a fully distributed system, Distrix allows developers to implement redundancy and fault tolerance by plugging in hardware or software modules without having to change existing software. In this way, Distrix makes it possible to implement systems that have no single point of failure quickly and cost-effectively. Distrix systems can recover from hardware failures by deploying software agents to alternative hardware automatically.

Extensible and robust. Distrix gives the end user the ability to replace, upgrade, or reconfigure seamlessly as needed. There never needs to be a complete overhaul. The user can add a second processor and the system will scale automatically to utilize the new power. Damaged devices can be swapped out with identical or similar units without modifying other components in the system.

Rapid in development. In research and product development, Distrix yields significant time and cost savings due to the ability to hot-swap components and develop software modules in a fail-safe environment without affecting the overall system architecture. Developers can create isolated subsystems without concern for how the subsystems communicate and create subsystems that access information from an existing component without modifying that component.

Modular. By implementing as a combination of small, cohesive agents across multiple pieces of hardware, Distrix separates functionality into well-defined modules so that the platform can be adapted to a variety of static or dynamic environments. 

Distrix Agent Architecture

Distrix agents provide the edge connectivity for devices in a Distrix-enabled system and supports a large library of hardware and operating system abstractions to enable development and testing in a cross-platform environment.

Check out the list of supported runtime environments.