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AS OF 5/17/2008 12:22PM EST
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Sentilla Takes Wraps Off Pervasive Computing Platform
By P. J. Connolly
November 15, 2007 —
Computing may be everywhere one looks, but so-called “pervasive computing” is just getting off the ground. Built on an ecosystem of cheap, yet robust, networked devices, pervasive, or ubiquitous, computing may power the next generation of applications, manipulating mobile and RFID technologies with cutting-edge developer tools.
In mid-October, Sentilla, formerly Moteiv, announced the Sentilla Software Suite, a Java-based platform for developing, deploying, integrating and managing pervasive computing applications. With support from IBM, Sun Microsystems and Texas Instruments, the company hopes to address the needs of a variety of industries, including agriculture, defense, entertainment and manufacturing.
The suite, which is still in beta, is made up of the Eclipse-based Sentilla Work IDE and Sentilla Point. As the name suggests, Point is the combination runtime supporting the end device, as well as the application framework, which allows multiple applications on a device. Point currently runs on so-called “motes” built with TI’s MSP430 processors.
Going up the stack, Sentilla’s software includes APIs that tie into IBM’s offerings in the areas of middleware, SOA and Web services, allowing management through commonly used tools. The development kit includes 10 Sentilla "Tmotes" for use with sample applications, or just to get one’s feet wet with pervasive computing.
The company plans to offer two SOA services, imaginatively named Integrate and Manage. Sentilla’s Integrate allows the use of existing infrastructure in a pervasive application through a standards-based approach. The Manage service enables the remote management of pervasive devices, again within the existing infrastructure.
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