Success story – Tuxera FlashFX helps WAGO build a faster PLC
With Tuxera FlashFX™ flash management software, WAGO was able to design the most responsive PLC on the market.
The need for speedy PLCs
The challenge
WAGO PLCs use the Mentor Graphics NUCLEUS operating system, an OS which has been popular with the industrial segment for its small footprint and simple license structure. WAGO needed a flash file system that could meet their requirement for fast writes to the flash.
In their search to find the right flash manager, WAGO discovered Tuxera’s FlashFX™ products. Engineers on the project were immediately impressed by the simple integration process. Our FlashFX products comes standard with drop-in support for over 300 well-known flash parts, a feature that enabled the WAGO team to integrate Tuxera’s FlashFX solution quickly.
What really impressed WAGO engineers however, was that the write performance to the flash was 40-95% faster than the other solutions they had tried. “We were impressed by the seamless integration of Datalight* FlashFX Pro into the existing software,” said Jurgen Gorka, WAGO Product Manager. “That combined with the superior performance of the Datalight product makes it an easy choice for both WAGO and our customers.”
The results
* This customer success story has been updated in 2021. Datalight was originally mentioned as the software provider in this story. As of 2019, Datalight Inc. became a wholly owned subsidiary of Tuxera Inc. Tuxera now owns all of Datalight’s former products, including the ones mentioned in this project. Tuxera is dedicated to providing superior technical know-how in data storage challenges and responsive customer support.
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Success story – Tuxera helps Alcatel-Lucent bring NAND-based ethernet solution to market rapidly and with enhanced reliability
Tuxera Reliance Nitro™ and FlashFX Tera™ bring fail-safety, improved responsiveness and performance to product for years to come.
Assured data integrity and product longevity
The OmniSwitch 6250 (OS6250) is a family of 10/100 L2+ Ethernet workgroup switches that provide tremendous value to enterprise and to multiple service operators (MSOs). The family provides a complete solution with built-in optical and copper uplinks, fault-tolerant stacking and Power over Ethernet. The OS6250 is built on a hardware chipset running a mature software base including the VxWorks operating system. The hardware chosen by the Alcatel-Lucent engineering team dictated new NAND-flash chips that were not well supported by the software base. The team wrestled with the best way to use the new and cost-effective NAND parts without introducing bugs in the drivers or file system software and causing software support problems.
Equipment featured here may not be actual product discussed.
The challenge
The OmniSwitch 6250 (OS6250) is a family of 10/100 L2+ Ethernet workgroup switches that provide tremendous value to enterprise and to multiple service operators (MSOs). The family provides a complete solution with built-in optical and copper uplinks, fault-tolerant stacking and Power over Ethernet. The OS6250 is built on a hardware chipset running a mature software base including the VxWorks operating system. The hardware chosen by the Alcatel-Lucent engineering team dictated new NAND-flash chips that were not well supported by the software base. The team wrestled with the best way to use the new and cost-effective NAND parts without introducing bugs in the drivers or file system software and causing software support problems.
The results
Alcatel-Lucent considered in house development combining a NAND flash driver from the chip vendor with the flash file system from an older release of VxWorks, but decided it would take too long. Tuxera FlashFX Pro and Reliance were chosen to speed up development time, reduce risk, and avoid future support issues. Development went smoothly and on-schedule, and the Alcatel-Lucent team was able to concentrate their resources on the product instead of flash file system development, maintenance and support.
Customers using the OmniSwitch 6250 will notice smoother, more responsive performance, thanks to the professional flash management provided by FlashFX. The improved reliability of Reliance means fewer hassles and an Ethernet system that will work exactly as designed for years to come.
“Our customers will benefit from a robust flash file system that combines high performance and freedom from potential file system problems caused by power failures,” said Bryan Dietz, Alcatel-Lucent Senior Systems Architect.
* This customer success story has been updated in 2020. Datalight was originally mentioned as the software provider in this story. As of 2019, Datalight Inc. became a wholly owned subsidiary of Tuxera Inc. Tuxera now owns all of Datalight’s former products, including the ones mentioned in this project. Tuxera is dedicated to providing superior technical know-how in data storage challenges and responsive customer support.
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Success story – Tuxera delivers winning performance to Formula One racing
Tuxera Reliance™ family preserves critical data in demanding automotive environments, while ensuring peak device performance.
The challenge
Magneti Marelli, leading supplier of high-performance automotive systems, was commissioned by several Formula One teams to develop a “black box” data logger – a recording device for race data on their Formula One cars. The number one customer requirement was of course speed, but it was also vital that the solution not sacrifice reliability in preserving critical race data. Further complicating the issue of performance vs. reliability, Formula One systems must survive brutal, computer-hostile environments, and are under strict regulation for system attributes like size, weight, processor and memory type. The Magneti Marelli system uses a CompactFlash card for memory with the Wind River VxWorks 6.6 operating system. Engineers tried several file systems including HRFS for VxWorks, but were unable to configure the file system to meet the customer’s requirement for throughput speed.
The results
As the Magneti Marelli engineering team discovered, Tuxera Reliance™ offers a custom-tunable architecture known as Dynamic Transaction Point™ technology, which allows the developer a high degree of flexibility in finding the optimal balance between performance and data-at-risk for any use case. Whereas other file systems the team tried were either fast or reliable, Reliance enabled Magneti Marelli to offer their Formula One customer significant performance gains without sacrificing the reliability that they needed. Reliance accomplishes this with an architecture that performs regular transactions where data is moved from a “working state” to a “known good” state. Developers can control how often transactions occur and what triggers them according to time, system events (like file close), or through run-time application control.
By implementing Reliance, Magneti Marelli easily met the Formula One customer’s requirements for speed and reliability. Riccardo De Filippi, Magneti Marelli Motorsport head of electronics product line had this to say; “Using Tuxera Reliance allowed us to meet the performance requirements of our Formula One customer while maintaining the failsafe operation they needed. We won’t hesitate to use Tuxera software again when performance and reliability are top priorities.”
* This customer success story has been updated November 18, 2020. Datalight was originally mentioned as the software provider in this story. As of 2019, Datalight Inc. became a wholly owned subsidiary of Tuxera Inc. Tuxera now owns all of Datalight’s former products, including the ones mentioned in this project. Tuxera is dedicated to providing superior technical know-how in data storage challenges and responsive customer support.
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Success story – Tuxera keeps digital payment technologies parking meters running reliably and development team productivity high
Tuxera FlashFX Tera™ and Reliance Edge™ ensure high reliability and power fail-safety, reducing maintenance costs while saving revenue
Secure payment is needed in parking
Digital Payment Technologies (DPT) is the leading producer of multi-space parking meters. The LUKE on-street and SHELBY off-street pay stations provide unmatched reliability and greater flexibility than any other parking meter. Because parking meters are typically placed in remote locations and many rely on solar power, it is extremely important that the stations be highly reliable and power-failure safe. Parking meter operators using standard meters run the risk of losing credit card transactions if the power fails or may suffer days of lost revenue waiting for a technician to be dispatched to fix meters that suffer software corruption due to power failure. In setting out to build a better meter, DPT knew the embedded system had to be as rugged and maintenance-free as possible.
Equipment featured here may not be actual product discussed.
The results
Initially, DPT’s engineering team discovered Tuxera software when a problem with a flash memory component was diagnosed using Tuxera FlashFX Tera™ (formerly Datalight FlashFX Pro®) validation tools. This, combined with the responsiveness of the Tuxera support team, helped the DPT team move quickly through its development process. DPT was also pleased to be able to leave flash management concerns to Tuxera’s decades of expertise, and instead focus on improving the functionality of its products.
“Datalight* software helped our engineering team increase their productivity tremendously,” said DPT Development Manager, Andrew Eastgaard. “Using the products allowed my team to focus on the features that set our meters apart from the competition, and their support team gave us almost instant response assistance when we needed it.” After learning the fault-tolerant attributes of the Tuxera Reliance Edge™ (formerly Datalight Reliance®) file system would protect transaction data from power failure, DPT decided to incorporate both FlashFX Tera and Reliance Edge into its pay station design.
The reliability that the Tuxera flash file system adds to DPT’s parking meters makes the pay stations highly desirable to the municipalities and parking companies that need them. Not only does the software reduce maintenance costs and lost revenue due to machine downtime, Reliance Edge also prevents operators from losing credit card transactions when power fails.
* This customer success story has been updated in 2021. Datalight was originally mentioned as the software provider in this story. As of 2019, Datalight Inc. became a wholly owned subsidiary of Tuxera Inc. Tuxera now owns all of Datalight’s former products, including the ones mentioned in this project. Tuxera is dedicated to providing superior technical know-how in data storage challenges and responsive customer support.
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Success story – Tuxera provides stable data management for NASA ST8 mission
Tuxera delivers high performance and reliability to rugged embedded devices, boosting throughput while enabling smooth integration
Outfitting avionics and defense for the rigors of space
For over 20 years, Aitech has been building rugged embedded computing solutions for an impressive list of high-profile defense and space research programs. Recently, Aitech joined a ground-breaking space project, the NASA ST8 Mission. The Aitech engineers needed data management software robust enough to withstand the harsh conditions of space and yet simple to integrate into their existing development environment, in order to avoid delays to the tightly constrained project. Aitech knew they needed a development partner that understood their business requirements as well as the project’s stringent performance and reliability standards.
Equipment featured here may not be actual product discussed.
After reviewing several options, Aitech chose Tuxera software as the data management foundation for the S950 single board computer and the S990 flash memory module. The S950 is designed to be customized to serve one of several critical functions, including a redundant mission computer, flight guidance and navigation computer, command and data handling computer, solid state recorder, video controller, and manipulator controller. The S990 is a high-capacity flash memory module that is radiation tolerant and latchup-protected.
The results
Tuxera products reduce the complexity of data management, offering a high-performance, low-overhead solution. The software allows Aitech customers to access raw memory, both shortening development time and fueling innovation. This enables Aitech products to function at very high throughput rates. The S950 is the fastest SBC that has been qualified and fielded successfully for space applications.
“Datalight* provided a solution that was pre-ported to our RTOS and backed by impeccable technical support, which made integration extremely smooth,” said Anthony Lai, VP of Space Systems at Aitech. “Through our evaluations, we knew that we were getting a high-performance solution, but what we did not expect was that the file system functionality would offer our customers features that they cannot get from our competitors.”
* This customer success story has been updated in 2021. Datalight was originally mentioned as the software provider in this story. As of 2019, Datalight Inc. became a wholly owned subsidiary of Tuxera Inc. Tuxera now owns all of Datalight’s former products, including the ones mentioned in this project. Tuxera is dedicated to providing superior technical know-how in data storage challenges and responsive customer support.
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Success story – Tuxera helps Texas Instruments empower students in mastering complex mathematical concepts
Tuxera FlashFX Tera™ and Reliance Edge™ bring optimized performance and data protection to handheld devices in mathematics classrooms
Enhancing interactive learning with flash memory
When classroom technology experts Texas Instruments (TI) went searching for the best-in-class data management software for the new TI-Nspire™ and TI-Nspire™ CAS, they found Tuxera Reliance Edge™ (formerly Datalight* Reliance) and Tuxera FlashFX Tera™ (formerly Datalight FlashFX® Pro) to be the right fit. The flash memory based technology was designed for teachers and students in secondary school mathematics to enable interactive learning and supplemental classroom materials, allowing students to more easily grasp complex mathematics.
The challenge
Because handheld products like the TI-Nspire family are prone to power interruptions, it was essential for TI to develop a system that would protect user data in the event of power failure. What TI needed was a flash file system that offered both data protection and superior performance. From their experience with the challenges of building flash-based devices, TI also understood the importance of dependable support in meeting their development targets.
The results
Texas Instruments found the combination of FlashFX Tera intelligent flash manager and Reliance Edge fault-tolerant embedded file system to be the right choice for their TI-Nspire family. FlashFX lets the application software written by OEM’s interface seamlessly to the flash memory as though it were a simple hard drive, reducing overall design complexity. The software platform makes second sourcing of flash parts simple because of the wide array of flash technologies FlashFX supports as well as its ability to automatically detect the flash part in the system. Reliance Edge is specifically designed to eliminate the risk of data corruption in embedded devices that operate in environments where power interruption may occur. Tuxera worked with TI to integrate Reliance Edge and FlashFX into their TI-Nspire family of products. The responsiveness of Tuxera support was a critical element in TI’s choice of FlashFX Tera and Reliance Edge.
The TI-Nspire CAS learning solution, integrated with FlashFX Tera and Reliance Edge, establishes one of the educational industry’s most highly integrated and optimized solutions for teachers and students in secondary school. Not only will FlashFX Tera and Reliance Edge help TI to better streamline their manufacturing process, but the power it brings should benefit students with different learning styles and increase comprehension by supporting interactive math and science concepts presented in multiple representations.
* This customer success story has been updated in 2021. Datalight was originally mentioned as the software provider in this story. As of 2019, Datalight Inc. became a wholly owned subsidiary of Tuxera Inc. Tuxera now owns all of Datalight’s former products, including the ones mentioned in this project. Tuxera is dedicated to providing superior technical know-how in data storage challenges and responsive customer support.
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Success story – Tuxera helps Motorola build “future proof” platform for enterprise mobile computers
Tuxera FlashFX Tera™ supercharges device write performance while also enabling future-proofing and backwards compatibility
Meeting the ever-changing needs of enterprise mobile computers
In designing the ground-breaking new MC9500K enterprise mobile computer, Motorola sought to provide its customers the best mix of features and performance available anywhere on the market. And while customers are attracted to next-generation performance, often they also demand compatibility with a large pool of previously-deployed units in the field.
Equipment featured here may not be actual product discussed.
The challenge
Typically, any upgrade to the latest handheld technology will require software updates that work with legacy hardware as well. Yet another factor complicating software management for OEMs like Motorola is the complexity of sourcing flash parts in today’s ever-changing flash market – with fluctuations in price and availability and frequent end-of-life announcements. In fact, sourcing flexibility became a major strategic focus for the MC9500 design team as they considered flash management software, having dealt with end-of-life concerns many times in the past. The software team was faced with the engineering challenge of customizing a flash driver for the past, present, and future hardware needs of their customers – no small task given the circumstances.
The results
In researching their options for flash management, Motorola’s design team discovered Tuxera FlashFX Tera™ (formerly Datalight* FlashFX® Pro), the intelligent flash media manager, with pre-written support for an ever-growing list of flash parts that currently tops 300. With help from the Tuxera support team, Motorola had FlashFX up and running on the new target hardware in a few weeks, and they soon discovered write performance was three times faster than the default OS driver. Tuxera has provided support for flash parts from all major vendors for over a decade, giving Motorola customers the assurance that software upgrades will work on older flash-based systems as well as systems now and in the future. The performance and flexibility FlashFX brought to the Motorola design made the decision a simple one.
With FlashFX, Motorola was able to solve concerns about future-proofing and backwards compatibility for field upgrades, and its customers reap the benefit of noticeably faster write performance. In the MC9500, Motorola now has complete independence in sourcing flash parts, allowing it to meet production deadlines and shop for the most competitively priced flash parts.
* This customer success story has been updated in 2021. Datalight was originally mentioned as the software provider in this story. As of 2019, Datalight Inc. became a wholly owned subsidiary of Tuxera Inc. Tuxera now owns all of Datalight’s former products, including the ones mentioned in this project. Tuxera is dedicated to providing superior technical know-how in data storage challenges and responsive customer support.
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Success story – Blackboard taps Tuxera to help protect student data
Tuxera FlashFX Tera™ and Reliance Nitro™ prevent data corruption and ensure reliability and security in sensitive financial transactions
Providing secure services to millions of students around the world
Blackboard is the leader in education enterprise technology designed to improve the experience of millions of students around the world. Blackboard Transact™ technology gives students the convenience of one card for all their needs—from building access to campus meals, to on and off-campus purchases. They also have easy and secure access to financial aid credit balances, student payroll, or money deposited from home. Plus, Blackboard Transact technology helps make the campus a model of expert and efficient operations and delivers round-the-clock student services.
Equipment featured here may not be actual product discussed.
The challenge
When Blackboard introduced a suite of “contactless” card readers and POS terminals using the Windows Embedded CE operating system to replace magnetic stripe campus ID systems, they wanted to offer greatly improved security and ease-of-use. Considering the heightened awareness around campus security and because the systems process sensitive financial data, Blackboard needed a more stable and secure platform than anything used by its competitors.
Understanding the criticality of the data handled by these systems, Blackboard’s BSP provider recommended that they use a Tuxera flash file system instead of relying on the standard file system included with Windows Embedded CE. Tuxera FlashFX Tera (Formerly Datalight FlashFX Pro) and Tuxera Reliance Nitro (Formerly Datalight Reliance) are pre-integrated for use with CE, offering significantly improved protection from data corruption and better performance. The Blackboard engineering team was also impressed by the responsive support they received from Tuxera, which helped accelerate their development efforts and got them to market faster.
The results
Educational organizations using the new Blackboard system have the assurance of knowing their students’ data and financial transactions are protected from loss or corruption, remaining stable under any condition. “We set out to build the best campus ID and POS system in the world,” said Dennis Cozart, Vice President, Product Development, at Blackboard. “Datalight’s* reliable, robust file system gives our customers an added layer of protection.”
* This customer success story has been updated in 2021. Datalight was originally mentioned as the software provider in this story. As of 2019, Datalight Inc. became a wholly owned subsidiary of Tuxera Inc. Tuxera now owns all of Datalight’s former products, including the ones mentioned in this project. Tuxera is dedicated to providing superior technical know-how in data storage challenges and responsive customer support.
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Success story – Tuxera helps InHand preserve reputation for reliability while improving team efficiency
Tuxera FlashFX Tera™ provides robust reliability in hand-held wireless devices for medical, military, aerospace, and industrial manufacturers.
Meeting the hand-held embedded device needs of industrial manufacturers
InHand is the leading provider of low-power embedded systems to medical, military, aerospace, and industrial manufacturers. InHand’s customers rely on their reputation for highly reliable, robust, and ruggedized embedded systems to produce battery-operated, hand-held wireless devices such as UMPCs, PDAs, wearable computers, industrial computers, and smart sensors.
The challenge
Recently a key customer of InHand began experiencing data corruption related to the flash driver on their well-known Fingertip modules. The unusual flash configuration required by the project was not compatible with the default flash driver. Despite several attempted work-arounds by InHand engineers, the customer’s data corruption issues persisted.
After trying several different options to fix the problem, the InHand engineering team discovered Tuxera FlashFX TeraTM (formerly known as Datalight FlashFX® Pro), an intelligent flash media manager designed to handle the complexities associated with flash memory. FlashFX Tera solves many of the inherent issues common to flash, with features like sophisticated bad-block management and advanced wear-leveling algorithms. It has also been shown to improve overall data throughput. Fast, efficient integration comes standard with drop-in support for over 300 well-known flash parts, allowing the In-Hand engineering team to integrate FlashFX Tera quickly. In fact, they had the customer up and running within only a matter of days.
The results
Immediately following implementation of FlashFX Tera on the customer’s project, the customer’s data corruption issues stopped. Further analysis by InHand revealed that using the Tuxera solution is more cost-effective than spending in-house development time whenever a new flash part is used and frees up resources for product improvement. After careful consideration, InHand decided to include FlashFX Tera on their entire line of Fingertip4 and Fingertip5 products. “Using Datalight’s* drivers enabled our team to focus on optimizing other parts of the system while still providing our customer with highly reliable flash storage,” said Dr. Dave Stewart, a nationally recognized embedded systems expert and Director of Software Engineering for InHand. “The inclusion of FlashFX helps us continue our reputation for producing highly reliable, robust, and ruggedized embedded systems. Our customers gain worry-free flash data storage on our Fingertip family of products due to the increased reliability of the FlashFX drivers over our previous solution.”
* This customer success story has been updated May 24, 2021. Datalight was originally mentioned as the software provider in this story. As of 2019, Datalight Inc. became a wholly owned subsidiary of Tuxera Inc. Tuxera now owns all of Datalight’s former products, including the ones mentioned in this project. Tuxera is dedicated to providing superior technical know-how in data storage challenges and responsive customer support.
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Success story – Improved responsiveness of handheld mobile computer
Tuxera Reliance Nitro™ and FlashFX Pro™ (today sold as FlashFX Tera) deliver speed and performance to meet the demands of fast-paced logistics work.
Outperforming the competition
The leader in imaging barcode scanning* operates in a market where competitors must fiercely defend their marketshare, often with minor differences in features, price, performance, and reliability. Customers in this market routinely perform exhaustive performance benchmarks when making a purchase decision. A substandard result on any single metric can drive them to seek a different vendor. Typical customers include companies involved in field service, route accounting, and postal/parcel delivery, or any enterprise requiring mobile computers to automate their operations. The purpose-built handheld mobile computers they use incorporate advanced wireless technology, integrated GPS, and the ability to capture high-quality digital images, allowing workers to perform many functions with a single device.
* Company name cannot be disclosed due to NDA restrictions.
Equipment featured here may not be actual product discussed.
The challenge
Due to the competitive nature of the handheld mobile computer market, this Fortune 500 company’s reputation for high-performance devices is critical to their commercial success. When a few drivers at one of their largest shipping and logistics customers began experiencing slow entry response time, the company had to fix the problem quickly. Lack of responsiveness is a common symptom of NAND flash-based mobile devices that are bogged down by the standard default drivers included with the operating system.
Luckily the system integrator on the project had seen this problem before, and recommended switching toTuxera FlashFX Pro (today sold as FlashFX Tera), an intelligent flash management solution that provides improved performance and better data reliability, for more responsive and reliable devices. FlashFX products also give manufacturers flexibility and faster integration with over 300 flash chip part numbers, including pre-written support for SLC and MLC NAND and NOR parts from top manufacturers, fusion flash, and application processor flash controllers. The system integrator also recommended switching the default file system to Tuxera Reliance Nitro, a high-performance reliable file system. Reliance Nitro improves the speed of file and directory access by several orders of magnitude, while continuing to deliver rock-solid reliability. Its unique combination of tree-based directory architecture, extent based design, and faster atomic transactions, gives a performance benefit for I/O throughput and metadata operations.
The results
With the help of Tuxera’s software, the company has the most responsive and reliable handheld mobile computers available on the market. In addition to features like cutting-edge wireless technology, user-friendly ergonomics, and multi-functional data capture, the devices now offer improved productivity, lower operating costs, and fewer hassles – attributes that are appreciated by front-line workers, managers, and cost accountants alike.
* This customer success story has been updated July 8, 2020. Datalight was originally mentioned as the software provider in this story. As of 2019, Datalight Inc. became a wholly owned subsidiary of Tuxera Inc. Tuxera now owns all of Datalight’s former products, including the ones mentioned in this project. Tuxera is dedicated to providing superior technical know-how in data storage challenges and responsive customer support.
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