The Many IoT Roles of embedded Linux

Embedded Linux offers a wide range of functionalities and drivers to allow it to serve in different aspects of the IoT eco-system. It can easily act as a protocol translation gateway by leveraging its wide portfolio of supported protocols or be configured to manage a multitude of sensors or manage physical interactions. It is flexible enough to allow a system to be setup to leverage embedded Linux for any or all of these. Examples of different ways embedded Linux can be leveraged for IoT elements will be identified. This flexiblity of embedded Linux can be very confusing to anyone unfamiliar. In this session we shall look at pro's and con's of using Linux in different roles in an IoT eco-system. When possible, examples will be used to illustrate.

IoT itself covers a wide range of uses and certain use cases that present difficult challenges for Linux. Tradional RTOS's and bare metal programming may be be suitable but each has limitations. Embedded Linux can serve as a bridge to the RTOS and bare metal devices. Knowing when it is advantageous or not will be addressed as part of this session. Subjects covered include power and footprint.

Embedded Linux carries most fo the features of desktop Linux but poor leveraging of this flexibility can be harmful from a security standpoint. Many traditional desktop and server security techniques can be leveraged to mitigate this. This session will introduce some of the basic security techniques that can reduce the susceptibility of an embedded Linux IoT element being succesfully attached.