[Info-vax] VMS and the Internet of Things (IoT)

[Simon Clubley]

I've seen a number of posts recently about VMS and it's possible role
in an Internet of Things (IoT) environment.

However, it appears to me that people are talking at cross-purposes
when talking about the IoT because the term itself is so vaguely
defined and as such people appear to have their own differing and
unstated assumptions about what the IoT actually is.

As such, it might be a good idea if people state what they mean by
the IoT and how they see the role that VMS has in it, because right
now I am not seeing a major role for VMS.

Here's my initial pass at defining what I think the IoT is all about
when I hear that phrase and why I think the above about VMS:

I think of the IoT as being a three level architecture with sensors
on devices at the lowest level, some kind of coordinator or
controller within the facility at the medium level, and remote
servers (if needed) at the highest level.

At the lowest level, the sensors on devices level, there's absolutely
no role for VMS at all. Most of these are going to be Cortex-M0/M4
level CPUs if even that as in some cases these might just be small
8-bit devices or even dumb sensors wired directly into the facility
controller.

The medium level facility controller is where things may start to get
more interesting but I don't see a role for VMS here either even if
you ignore that fact that VMS will not currently run on the
architectures typically in use here.

This facility controller is going to be a small low power box which
can probably be wall mounted; think something the size of a Beaglebone
Black or a Raspberry Pi with a box and little LCD/touch panel wrapped
around it.

It's unlikely to be some desktop sized PC box with fans going and
consuming greater than a couple of hundred watts. Something like the
Cortex-A8 may even be overkill for many of these controllers. Regardless,
this is RTOS or embedded Linux territory where you can quickly put
together a BSP for the specific SBC in use (assuming one doesn't
already exist).

Only at the highest level, the remote server level, can I begin to see
a viable role for VMS. However, I am not seeing what VMS would bring
to the table here over the other existing options (and please don't
say security).

Security on the IoT devices is a joke and is a joke in ways that
changing the remote server operating system will have very little
effect on. Some of the security issues appear to be occuring because
of the mindset which is sometimes present when writing the software
for these devices.

So that's my take on the IoT. What's yours and where do you see a
possible place for VMS within the IoT world ?

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
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