Extending the product life cycle with embedded licensing
By Vikram Koka
CPU Tech, a manufacturer of secure processors, faced customer demand for different levels of functionality, operations, and security at different life cycle phases. As Vikram notes here, in the process of working with a third-party software licensing and entitlement management vendor, CPU Tech developed a list of criteria for meeting its customers’ licensing and pricing model needs.
With the recent surge in cyber security threats, it’s no surprise that military, government, and other sectors are eye- ing secure processors and anti-tamper devices, which can help protect software and systems from reverse engineering.
In the military/defense technology community, projects and initiatives have extensive and complex govern- ment reviews and milestones. Therefore it is common for defense products and
solutions to have a five-to-ten-year (sometimes longer) life cycle. Because of these long life spans, CPU Tech often found its customers did not need all product capabilities during all phases of a project. For example not everyone working in integration, test, or manu- facturing needed to understand sensitive design details. Nor should everyone be allowed access to such details. To cite another example, there are times in a product life cycle when some security
20 | April 2011 Embedded Computing Design
settings might be “locked down” for the remainder of the program. Also, some programs are “compartmentalized.” Compartmentalization gives engineers and users different access rights. This is all familiar territory for CPU Tech, which understood the various ways that its customers wanted to use and access CPU Tech processors. However, the company had no way to license, price, or allow access to support compartmental- ization and other requirements.
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Software | RTOS and tools
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