BlackBerry has unveiled QNX Containers, expanding the QNX software portfolio to support operating system (OS) virtualization and containerization on QNX-based devices.
QNX Containers provide a standards-based environment for the deployment, execution, and management of container technology on QNX-based devices, enabling customers to leverage the benefits of container technology as well as the safety, security and reliability provided by the QNX microkernel architecture.
QNX Containers also allow for restrictions on features such as networking, filesystems, device access, memory access, communications and CPU among others.
This restriction set provides highly secure and isolated embedded containerswhile still maintaining the high performance and hard real time nature of the QNX OS 8. Furthermore, QNX Containers co-exist with the QNX Hypervisor environment, allowing for simultaneous use of both virtual machines and containers.
“Development teams looking to build containerization into their strategy shouldn’t have to compromise on their choice of RTOS. QNX Containers provide a standards-based way to package applications and their dependencies and then run them in a controlled and managed environment on QNX. We are already working with many customers who have standardized on our Hypervisor and OS, and who are gearing up to leverage QNX Containers as well,” said Grant Courville, VP Products and Strategy, QNX.
In addition to Open Container Initiative (OCI) compliance and support for Kubernetes toolchains and Docker repositories, QNX Containers is also built according to ISO 21434 security processes and designed to be ready for use in customer programs requiring functional safety certification.
Courville continues,
“Our work with a Global OEM on its virtual cockpit using QNX Hypervisor, VirtIO and other QNX software in the cloud, is just one example of QNX technology enabling the forerunners in innovation. Ultimately, our focus is set on enabling our valued customers to build the most safe, secure and reliable systems on the planet, and to do so at scale from cloud to device, and from low-end to high performance compute platforms.”
QNX Containers should be available in Q4, 2024.
