RTI Research

DevSecOps stands for development, security, and operations. It's an approach that integrates security into each of the phases of the software lifecycle. DDS is unique as a networking solution because of its advanced security model and features. We are exploring the design of enhancements to tools used throughout the software lifecycle to leverage this. This will elevate cybersecurity to become a first-class citizen, enabling ease-of-use, verifiability, and traceability that is not possible with other networking technologies.

Status: This work will continue into 2024.

Defining your networking data structures (types) is the starting point for Data-Centric Middleware and is the first step in designing a DDS-Based solution. Choosing the right type for the project is critical for the success of a new software architecture and yet we do not offer any guidance on how to do it right. Other solutions provide an already defined set of types to start with (e.g.: ROS).
Using the Type Repository and the integration with System Designer will alleviate this problem allowing the Connext Developer to browse a curated library of ready to use types. It will also allow large software teams to create their own type library and share types among themselves.

Status: This work will continue into 2023.

While Connext works out of the box with 5G, we are exploring how we can enhance its integration with 5G infrastructure to deliver more performance and configuration simplicity. We are on track to create our first SDK by mid-2023.

Status: This work will continue into 2024.

Many customers choose DDS because it is an open standard with multiple product offerings.  DDS-compliant products all interoperate.  However, the same cannot be said for cybersecurity tools like antivirus software, firewalls and intrusion detection solutions.  Once you pick one, you become vendor-locked.  While there are vendor-led efforts to solve this, no single solution yet exists.  To address this, we have been working on an open data model that will enable tool interoperability.  Using this approach, we have demonstrated the ability to run multiple competing products in the same network and easily ingest the now vendor-agnostic data downstream.  Our intent is to publish this model in order to promote interoperability.

Status: This work will continue into 2022.

seL4 is a high-assurance, high-performance, open source operating system microkernel.  It provides both time and space separation.  It is being evaluated by several major corporations for their own systems and their products (including autonomous platforms), because of its privacy, security and safety attributes.  We have been involved with seL4 for the past three years, and we are continuing to advance our integration support for this microkernel.

Status: This work will continue into 2023.

See more in our github library.

As container technologies like Docker and Kubernetes continue to become more popular, we need to understand how well our software and customers' applications will operate as they transition their systems to these technologies.

Status: Ongoing.

Information in RTI Community:

• Communicate Across Docker Containers Using the Host Driver
• Deploying an RTI Connext DDS Application with Docker
• Other Docker resources

See more on our blog.

We have been working in this area for several years now.  Primarily this work spans real-time simulations and training, globally distributed applications and integration with the latest generation of gaming engines (Unity and Unreal).  We have built prototype bridges to Unity, and RTI is now working on adding one for EPIC's Unreal Engine 5.