专访glen de vos：容器技术推动向软件定义汽车的转型

Bringing flexibility, manageability, and new opportunities to embeddedsoftware deployment July 2023 Interview with Glen De Vos Container technology promises to revolutionize the hardware-centricarchitecture model that has dominated the automobile industry sincemicrocontrollers and microcomputers made their way into vehicles decadesago. This transformation heralds a new era in which vehicle functions areeffectively managed by modular software. ABOUT GLEN W. DE VOS Glen W. De Vos, seniorvice president at Aptiv,oversees Transformationand Special Projectsand also serves as chieftechnology officer. Inthis role, he spearheadsAptiv’s innovation andglobal technologyinitiatives, drawing onexpertise gained overmore than a decade ofprogressive engineeringand managerial roles. The microservices approach at the heart of container technology opensopportunities for commoditizing new features within automobiles. Software-defined vehicles not only better serve the needs of consumers but recast thebusiness foundation of OEMs. Recently we spoke with Aptiv Senior Vice President and CTO Glen De Vos tolearn more about the growing adoption of container technology by automobilemanufacturers and how this shift affects the future of automobile design.We’ve consolidated his main points below. Containers Bring Needed Changes Glen De Vos:Containers bring three things to the automotive industry that aredesperately needed. First, they allow you to manage software, which today ismonolithic and difficult to maintain and update. They do that by modeling thecode set as manageable elements, or containers, with microservices. Second, they lower development costs. The cost of software for vehicles isgrowing exponentially. Containers break away from the architecture in whichsoftware is wired to the underlying hardware. The third thing is that containers unlock new monetization models withsoftware-related revenues. Containers Change More than the Software Architecture I think there is a near-time need for OEMs to be able to manage the software.We’re talking about the development process and the organizational dynamicsin the automobile industry. All of that is what leads to the business outcome.The OEMs can’t keep doing things the way that they always have. If they do,they’ll fail. They need to bring in new talent and rethink and modernize. We are seeing people who are natively software people,now coming into the OEM community. This is a complete revolution, and it’s one reason why we knew we had topartner with Wind River®. With containers, the work life and the work environment for our software engineers changes. We’re providing themmodern software architectures with modern toolchains. Their job gets easier. They’re more creative and more productive. Enable a Software-Defined Architecture from the Start OEMs need software-first thinking. When they think about any feature of the vehicle, they should be thinking of it interms of the software architecture first, and what it will take to control that windshield wiper, lift gate, or propulsionsystem — whatever the function of that feature is. In other words, what do I need from a software architecturestandpoint to enable that feature to work properly and let that drive the hardware requirements? Also, they should have a project mindset: What does the customer need, and how do I meet their need for a specificvehicle and a specific application? How do I architect my software so that it can meet the needs of a broader market,so that I can reuse that code and run it on any underlying hardware through virtualization? Container Technology Is Vital to the Future of Automobiles Container technology is new. Automotive is one of the trailing verticals in terms of adopting modern softwarearchitectures, in which you’re virtualizing the compute, abstracting software from the underlying operating system,containerizing the applications. The hyperscalers, the cloud providers — other industries have already moved in thisdirection. The auto industry is still very much locked in the old-school, monolithic model. Today, you define the hardware. You optimize the software on the hardware. There’s lots of little individual boxes thattalk together. But they don’t share really well. The physical architecture in the car hasn’t been ready to support a moremodern software architecture. We just couldn’t do it. Well, that’s what’s changing. It’s a chance to restart with a clean sheet for improving the architecture at OEM central. Automotive Demands More When developing, deploying, and operating automotive software, you need to bring it all together to make sure it iscompliant with some of the critical requirements for the industry, such as ISO 26262 for functional safety. We haveto be compliant, in terms of the product as well as the DevOps environment, with the functional safety requirementsand the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) data security requirements that are unique to automotive. Thenthere