Eurotech, a long-time leading provider of embedded systems and a global leader in Internet of Things (IoT) enablement, announces a new release of Everyware Software Framework (ESF). ESF Release 6.0.0, based on the recently announced Eclipse Kura 4.0.0 release, offers a commercially supported, enterprise ready edition of the open source middleware for IoT gateways and edge computing nodes.

ESF 6.0.0, compatible with Java 9 and OSGi R6, introduces a new model that simplifies plugging new cloud connection implementations.
It brings up a restructuring of the networking part to make it more pluggable and expandable, new drivers and supported platforms, as well as improvements to usability and bug fixes.
Being a major release, it also includes breaking changes and removes support for code and platforms no longer maintained by the original contributors.

Official Press Release

ESF 6.0.0 is available for download at the following link

New and Noteworthy:

APIs

• Cloud Connections: New Cloud Connections APIs that simplify the integration of third party cloud providers, simplifying the development of user applications
• Alerts: New Alerting model for special type of messages generated from the device
• New Bluetooth LE APIs to leverage new TinyB features: updated the TinyB library and updated Kura APIs to leverage the new changes provided by the referenced library 

Features

• Eclipse IoT WG Cloud Connection: A new Cloud Connection provider that leverages the new Cloud Connections APIs and enables Kura to connect with remote providers that support the new Eclipse IoT WG Namespace. E.g. this provider supports the integration with Eclipse Hono through the MQTT Adapter
• Upload of Asset channels from CSV file: In the Asset view, the user can now download and upload channel descriptions as CSV files.

Enhancements

• Non-blocking assets configuration updates
• Wires Graph Blinking rate limit
• Added fix validity, latitude and longitude hemisphere fields to GPS NMEA Position
• Reduced CPU usage by Kura Wires

Refactor and Cleanup

• Modular support of new platforms: Refactoring of framework structure to support, in a pluggable way, different operating systems and service managers (SysV, Systemd)
• SSL Manager Service: Service refactoring and cleanup. By default, Kura uses for secure communications its own cacerts.ks keystore instead of the one provided by the Java VM. The default installation provides a cacerts.ks keystore that contains only the Eclipse leaf certificate. To connect to a different provider or broker, the user must install the corresponding certificate in the cacerts.ks keystore, for example using the Kura web UI.
• New framework folder structure: The framework folder structure has been redesigned to simplify the user interaction.
• Refactored Diagnostic Service: Restructured and optimised code

Drivers

New drivers available also in the Eclipse Kura Marketplace:

• iBeacon Scanner
• Eddystone Scanner
• Dummy Driver

New Hardware Platforms and Distributions

• AAEON AIOT-IGWS01
• Windows for x86_64 systems

Target Platform Updates

• Eclipse Equinox 3.12.50 (Oxygen)
• Eclipse Milo 0.2.1
• Apache Log4j2 2.8.2
• SLF4J 1.7.25
• RedHat A-MQ 720004-redhat-1
• RedHat Fuse 710018-redhat-00001
• Intel Tinyb 0.5.1
• Eclipse Paho 1.2.0
• GWT 1.8.2

Breaking Changes:

• Removed APIs and implementation supporting HSQLDB
• org.eclipse.kura.net package cleanup and removal of deprecated APIs
• Removed deprecated newWireSupport as causing invocation loop
• Removed SslManagerServiceOptions class and modified SSLManagerService APIs
• Modified "verifySignature" method in Certificates APIs to accept, as first argument, KuraApplicationTopic instead of KuraTopic
• Removed WireService API and references

Discontinued Hardware Platforms and Distributions:

• ReliaGATE 10-05
• ReliaGATE 20-26

Deprecated APIs

• KuraTopic
• CloudCallService
• CloudClient
• CloudClientListener
• Cloudlet
• CloudletTopic
• CloudService
• CloudServiceFactory

Compatibility:

• ESF v6.0.0 introduces API breakage with previous releases.
• Containing a folder restructuring, a cleanup of the destination filesystem is required before installing ESF
• The Command Service is now disabled by default. To use it, the user needs to opt-in to this feature, enabling the service from configuration.

Target Environments:

ESF supports the following Devices:

• ReliaGATE 10-11;
• ReliaGATE 10-12;
• ReliaGATE 10-20;
• ReliaGATE 20-25;
  • Support for Bluetooth 2.1 is not available since Eurotech Linux version 22.0.0
• ReliaGATE 20-26;
• BoltGATE 20-25;
  • Support for Bluetooth 2.1 is not available
  • Only SystemD image is supported
• BoltMAR 20-28;
  • Support for Bluetooth 2.1 is not available
• Raspberry Pi 2;
• Raspberry Pi 3;
• ESF is also available as a pre-built Docker container based on:
  • Centos 7
  • RHEL 7