Ubuntu Core and Kura: A framework for IoT gateways

The Linux distribution model, whilst established and well understood for computing, has some limitations when it comes to IoT edge gateway devices. Due to often being located in remote or hard to access areas, there is a greater demand for a system that offers both high levels of robustness and security.

With the IoT gateway market growing at a fast pace in recent years and continuing to grow even more rapidly – mostly due to increasing demand for big data collection and analytics, there is greater importance being placed upon finding solutions that are capable of offering this.

Having a standard Linux distribution as the base is often not the optimal choice due to these systems often lacking a clear update story, creating security risks caused by an unmaintained system. Updates are often deferred because they are identified as risky operations, without a good recovery path. This makes such systems an unsuitable fit for unattended devices.

Unfortunately, the use of generalist Linux distributions will likely lead to problems and greater complexity, putting the success of these projects at risk.

This problem can be solved with a combination of Ubuntu Core, snaps and Kura.

Ubuntu Core is an important revolutionary step for Ubuntu. Whilst building upon Linux traditions, Ubuntu Core focuses on predictability, reliability and security while at the same time enabling developer freedom and control. It provides a trusted platform to deploy edge gateway solutions, such as Kura, an extensible open source IoT Edge Framework based on Java/OSGi.

In this whitepaper you will:

• Learn how Ubuntu Core’s snap packages allow for transactional updates to each key component
• Understand why Ubuntu Core, snaps and Kura are the best combination for IoT gateways
• Learn how to deploy Kura on Ubuntu Core and the IoT gateway security benefits of this model

Read the whitepaper