By Jerry Maldonado –VP of Automation, Customer Lifecycle Solutions
From the Ramblings of an Automation Mad Man ( A Blog Series) , the Connected Car Catch-up is a mini series that focuses on the advancement of cars and technology.
Ever wonder why big and small companies want to jump into the connected car game? Better yet, why would the consumers even want them to?
The answer is simple well sort of, let me explain . . .
Reason 1: Your car is at the Center of DevOps
If you look into the cars of today, by analyst estimates, there are over a 100 million lines of code. Need some perspective? Okay, if you look at the chart below you can see what this many lines of code looks like -
| |
Average IPhone app | 50,000 -75,000 |
Pace Maker | 100,000 |
Space Shuttle | 400,000 |
18,000 Pages of printed text | 1 Mil |
F22 Raptor Figher Jet | 2 Mil |
Windows 3.1 | 5 Mil |
Mars Curiosity Rover | 7 Mil |
Firefox | - 9.5 Mil
|
Chevy Volt | 10 Mil |
Android | 12 Mil |
Boeing 787 Flight Software | 15 Mil |
F35 Fighter jet ( 2013) | 25 Mil |
Windows 7 | 40 Mil |
MS office 2013 | 45 Mil |
Face Book | 62 Mil |
Mac OS X “Tiger” v10.4 | 85 Mil |
Reason 2: Your car is now a mobile datacenter
Don’t think we should classify your car as a mobile data center? Well, if we look at it for a purely hardware perspective we’ll see that today’s new cars carry on average about 200 pounds of electronics and more than a mile of wiring. Our cars have processors and their peripherals tucked into everything such as the side- and rear-view mirrors, wheel rims, headliner, gas tank, seat cushions, headrests, bumpers, and every other crevice one could squeeze them. Just look at the dashboard electronics such as the radio, air conditioning, and satellite navigation system and they are just the obvious ones. Even more processers are lurking under the surface.
How many processors does your car have? Go ahead, take a guess! The current high-end luxury sedan is probably carrying about 100 processors or more. Even some of the lower end models are pushing 15-20 CPUs. A relatively low-profile Volvo still has 50 to 60 baby processors on board. Even a boring low-cost economy box has a few dozen different microprocessors in it. Small to medium business might have 20-50 CPUs running their entire operation. Most home offices run 4-10 CPUs. Some of the world’s largest data centers run 650,000 CPUs.
You’re probably now thinking, “Ok Mad Man but my CPUs are connected… and yeah I know connected car but my servers talk to one another… this must mean that they are in a network.. Right? So what you are saying is that that a car has a network, right?”
Yes networks have also come to automobiles!
Car networks are enabled to allow processors to communicate amongst themselves. The results are smarter, safer, lighter cars with simpler and more reliable wiring. With this network capability comes some features you might know and love.Today’s entertainment system talks to the automatic transmission over an in-car network. The entertainment system via its communication with the transmission can automatically adjust its volume in relation to road noise (which is a function of speed).A car’s airbag accelerometer, parking lights, GPS navigation, cell phone, and door locks also part of a network so that in a serious accident, the car can call emergency aid by sending the GPS coordinates of the accident and unlocks the doors while turning on the emergency lights. Even things like side mirrors get a cue from the transmission so that when the driver shifts into reverse, the mirrors bend down and inward to provide a better view of what you're backing into.
So you see with the Connected Car moving away for pure hardware, to a more software driven machine, you can see why some of the biggest names are either already deep in the game or moving into the running. With CPU power going up and the race just heating up, big players like CA technologies and others have the pit crews to handle this new mobile data center. Why? Well, it’s because they have been doing it for years and the only thing that is changing is the platform. The needs are still the same. System monitoring and performance management, Security, Component Management, Software delivery (yes how do you think you’re going to get updates in the future. Look at the Tesla that can be remotely updated to perform new functions as easily as your smartphone) and other common components of Data Center Operations.
And you thought your home PC’s were fun to take care of … Welcome to the world of the Connected Car.
Follow the Ramblings from an Automation Mad Man every Wednesday. Did you miss last week’s post? Read it here: Connected Car Catch-up (A Mini Series): Communication