Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Reuben R Olinsky

Galen Clyde Hunt

Edmund Bernard Nightingale

Barry Clayton Bond

Thales Paulo De Carvalho

Adrian Bonar

Sang Eun Kim

Michael Richard Fortin

William Street

Paul G Mayfield

Russell T Young

George Thomas Letey

Douglas L Stiles

Adam Brady Anderson

Andrew A Baumann

Mark Andrew Cawston

Sudhanva Huruli

Rebecca Leigh Holt

This disclosure relates to building and finalizing an operating system (OS) image package in a way that allows for flexibility and customization of OS images while preventing certain runtime modifications after deployment of the OS image package on one or more target devices (e.g., embedded devices). For example, the systems described herein can build an OS image package based on information from an OS manifest that provides a declarative summary of a target OS. The systems described herein can further finalize the OS image package by performing one or more actions on the OS image package that prevent an end-user from performing various runtime modifications to the target OS after deployment of the OS image package. This finalization process provides an improved pipeline for implementing OS updates while providing safeguards against a variety of security risks associated with deploying OS image packages on a large scale.

Generating and distributing customized embedded operating systems

The disclosed technology is generally directed to IoT device update failure recovery. In one example of the technology, after writing an updated release to memory, a determination is made whether the updated release is valid. The updated release includes a plurality of image binaries. If the updated release is determined to be valid, the updated release is made the current release. A determination is made as to whether the current release is stable. Upon determining that the current release is unstable, an auto-rollback is performed. Performing the auto-rollback includes, via at least one processor, automatically: obtaining an uncompressed backup of a previous release; making the uncompressed backup of the previous release the current release; and executing the uncompressed backup.

IoT device update failure recovery

The disclosed technology is generally directed to updating of applications, firmware and/or other software on IoT devices. In one example of the technology, a request that is associated with a requested update is communicated from a normal world of a first application processor to a secure world of the first application processor. The secure world validates the requested update. Instructions associated with the validated update are communicated from the secure world to the normal world. Image requests are sent from the normal world to a cloud service for image binaries associated with the validated update. The secure world receives the requested image binaries from the cloud service. The secure world writes the received image binaries to memory, and validates the written image binaries.

Secure IoT device update

The disclosed technology is generally directed to integrated circuit technology with defense-in-depth. In one example of the technology, an integrated circuit includes a set of independent execution environments including at least two independent execution environments. At least two of the independent execution environments are general purpose cores with differing capabilities. The independent execution environments in the set of independent execution environments are configured to have a defense-in-depth hierarchy.

Multiple cores with hierarchy of trust

The described implementations relate to virtual computing techniques. One implementation provides a technique that can include receiving a request to execute an application. The application can include first application instructions from a guest instruction set architecture. The technique can also include loading an emulator and a guest operating system into an execution context with the application. The emulator can translate the first application instructions into second application instructions from a host instruction set architecture. The technique can also include running the application by executing the second application instructions.

Instruction set emulation for guest operating systems

Application compatibility is facilitated by use of library operating systems. Library operating systems can encapsulate portions of an application likely to break application compatibility. An application can be bound to a compatible library operating system that operates over a host operating system. Furthermore, library operating system version can be greater than, equal, or less than the version of the host operating system. Consequently, both backward and forward compatibility is enabled.

Application compatibility with library operating systems

Virtual machines are made lightweight by substituting a library operating system for a full-fledged operating system. Consequently, physical machines can include substantially more virtual machines than otherwise possible. Moreover, a hibernation technique can be employed with respect to lightweight virtual machines to further increase the capacity of physical machines. More specifically, virtual machines can be loaded onto physical machines on-demand and removed from physical machines to make computational resources available as needed. Still further yet, since the virtual machines are lightweight, they can be hibernated and restored at a rate substantially imperceptible to users.

Lightweight on-demand virtual machines

A library operating system is employed in conjunction with an application in a virtual environment to facilitate dynamic application migration. An application executing in a virtual environment with a library operating system on a first machine can be suspended, and application state can be captured. Subsequently, the state can be restored and execution resumed on the first machine or a second machine.

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Seattle, WA, United States of America

Reuben R Olinsky