Network File Sharing Software for ThreadX Available From Express LogicS

Express Logic, Inc., in royalty-free real-time operating systems (RTOS), and Blue Peach Software, in network file sharing software, announced that Express Logic’s ThreadX RTOS now has support for the CIFS network file sharing protocol made possible through integration with Blue Peach’s Blue Share CIFS protocol.

In addition, for a limited time, this software stack will be provided free of charge and is delivered with support for Express Logic’s NetX TCP/IP stack and FileX embedded file system components. This offer is available to new and existing licensees of Express Logic’s ThreadX and NetX packages.

CIFS is a network protocol designed to share files between systems over a network. There are typically two types of systems involved in this file sharing, clients and servers. Clients access files that are stored on a server. Many systems operate as both a client and a server which is the case with most desktop systems in use today. These desktop systems can both access files on a file server, but system admin and other users can also access files on shared folders on the desktop machine. With Blue Peach’s Blue Share software, ThreadX-based systems can participate in this same network of file-sharing nodes of desktops and file servers.

ThreadX is Express Logic’s royalty-free, full source code RTOS that is deployed in over 800 million consumer electronics, medical, and industrial automation devices. CIFS allows the sharing of directories, files, printers and other types of objects represented using file semantics over a network. CIFS also provide mechanisms for discovering servers, browsing for shares, listing of files, authenticating access, and securing communications. Network file sharing provides many benefits and CIFS is the most widely deployed and most cross platform friendly of all available file sharing protocols. Network Attached Storage (NAS) and Network File Sharing are closely related since all NAS devices use some form of protocol to access files. Most NAS devices today use CIFS. Embedded devices, enabled with CIFS, are able to access files on most NAS devices on the market.

The benefits of Network File Sharing are intuitive but in an embedded space, there are capabilities that become possible once the device is able to share files over a network:

no need for hard disk storage or large flash storage which can reduce costs
storage can be used more efficiently and shared among many devices, alleviating costs
devices can share state and files reducing the need for complicated synchronization mechanisms
loadable executables allowing for software upgrades without downloads and flash updates
centralized backup of important state information
use of high availability and data integrity features of RAID-based storage

CIFS layers additional benefits over basic Network File Sharing:

advanced communications semantics allowing communications through pipes or FIFOs
shared locking of files insuring data integrity across multiple clients
ability for sophisticated caching algorithms allowing for increased scalability of applications
fault tolerance and high availability through fail-over and resilient network connections
advanced security providing secure authentication, and file and directory security policies
high-performance implementations
unicode file names allowing for non-English and Western European languages
global file name space. Users need not be aware of the network nature of the files and all accesses occur transparently over the network

CIFS needs little from a host RTOS or operating system. Blue Share provides all layered functions needed with the exception of a TCP/IP networking stack and basic operating system fundamentals such as threads, and related synchronization mechanisms, which are now available from ThreadX, NetX and FileX. Secure Authentication requires a cryptographic stack like openssl and a CIFS server requires underlying host file system support.

Richard Schmitt, CTO of Blue Peach said: "The integration of Blue Share with ThreadX is a natural. Both Blue Share and ThreadX differentiate themselves in the embedded marketplace by being robust, high performing, and compact. The combination of Blue Share and ThreadX provides the smallest footprint for a CIFS client or server available today. In addition, ThreadX has one of the best programming paradigms for real-time systems. Blue Share exploits this model resulting in a very high performing and scalable system."

When asked why the integration with ThreadX is notable, Richard Schmitt replied: "The integration of Blue Share and ThreadX enables a whole new class of small footprint network file aware devices. It is particularly exciting for wireless SoC applications where low-power and low-cost solutions are so critical."

Some examples of applications that will benefit from this product integration:

Wireless applications sharing office documents or media
Printers printing documents queued from anywhere on the network
Digital TVs, DVDs, DVRs and other consumer electronics playing music, photos, and videos from computers on the network
Network attached storage devices
Medical devices accessing and updating records directly
Digital cameras printing or transferring pictures without special software on the target devices.

"Embedded applications are increasingly pivotal in home and enterprise networks," commented William Lamie, President of Express Logic. "By offering this integration with Blue Share, ThreadX continues to lead in platform support for intelligent network-aware devices. Particularly exciting is the seamless integration of Blue Share’s CIFS Client with FileX. Not only does this enable new development efforts, it also allows existing FileX applications to access and export their files anywhere on the network. We are always pleased when we can offer a new capability that transparently improves new and existing ThreadX applications."

Blue Share has been integrated with Express Logic’s ThreadX RTOS,NetX, its TCP/IP networking stack, and FileX, its FAT-based file system. Blue Share is also integrated with other third-party network and file system products for ThreadX. For a limited time, and in recognition of this announcement, Blue Peach is offering their Blue Share Client and Server software stack free of charge. The product is licensed as royalty-free source on individual OEM products.