Eclipse Ankaios

Eclipse Ankaios manages multiple nodes and virtual machines with a single unique API in order to start, stop, configure, and update containers and workloads. It provides a central place to manage automotive applications with a setup consisting of one server and multiple agents. Usually one agent per node connects to one or more runtimes that are running the workloads.

Eclipse Ankaios follows the UNIX philosophy to have one tool for one job and do that job well. It does not depend on a specific init system like systemd but can be started with any init system. It also does not handle persistency but can use an existing automotive persistency handling, e.g. provided by AUTOSAR Adaptive.

The workloads are provided access to the Eclipse Ankaios API using access control and thus are able to dynamically reconfigure the system. One possible use case is the dynamic startup of an application that is only required in a particular situation such as a parking assistant. When the driver wants to park the car, a control workload can start the parking assistant application. When the parking is finished, the parking assistant workload is stopped again.

Eclipse Ankaios also provides a CLI that allows developers to develop and test configurations. In order to gain compatibility with Kubernetes, Eclipse Ankaios accepts pod specifications.

A cloud connector can use the Eclipse Ankaios API to connect to a cloud-based software update system, which allows an OEM to manage a fleet of vehicles and provide new states to Eclipse Ankaios in order to update single or all applications. The cloud connection is optional, Eclipse Ankaios also works as standalone component.

In order to support the Automotive SPICE process, Eclipse Ankaios comes with requirements tracing supported by OpenFastTrace.