OSGi Residential Release 6 Specification

The OSGi Residential Expert Group is excited about the new specifications introduced in the OSGi Residential Release 6 Specification. You can find it at: http://www.osgi.org/Specifications/HomePage. It contains a number of new specifications mostly dealing with device interoperability and configuration, monitoring and management services. As with the previous Residential 4.3 Specification, the OSGi Alliance and the Home Gateway Initiative (HGI) synchronized their work in yearly workshops.

We are proud to present the following new service specifications that are now part of the OSGi ecosystem:

Device Abstraction Layer - The Device Abstraction Layer specification provides a unified interface for application developers to interact with sensors, devices, etc. connected to a gateway. Application developers don't have to deal with protocol specific details. This greatly simplifies the development of applications. This abstraction layer is also the basis to support the integration of semantic technologies in future specifications.

Device Abstraction Layer Functions - The Device Abstraction Layer Functions specification defines a minimal set of basic device operations and the related properties. They can be extended or replaced to cover domain specific scenarios. The set is not closed and can be incorporated with vendor specific functions. There is support for control, monitoring and metering information.

EnOcean Device Service Specification - This specification defines how OSGi bundles can both discover and control EnOcean devices, and act as EnOcean devices and interoperate with EnOcean clients. In particular, a Java mapping is provided for the standard representation of EnOcean devices called EnOcean Equipment Profile (EEP).

Network Interface Information Service - This service specification defines services that provide a standard way for bundles to receive notifications about changes in the IP network interfaces and IP addresses.

Resource Monitoring - The Resource Monitoring specification defines an API for applications to monitor resources consumed by any set of bundles. This includes hardware resources but also covers other resource types as well. Data derived from monitoring enables applications to take decisions on management actions to apply. Resource management actions are mentioned as examples in this specification, including actions on the lifecycle of components, bundles, the framework and the JVM, Java threads, and the raising of exceptions.

Serial Device Service Specification - The Serial Device Service specification defines an API to communicate with controllers, devices and other equipment that is connected via a serial port.

USB Information Category – This specification adds a new Device Access Category for USB devices to the Device Access specification in order to handle, for example, the integration of communication protocols, for example, ZigBee or Z-Wave via USB dongles.

Please share the news, review the specification and give us your feedback.

Andreas Kraft & Kai Hackbarth (co-chairs Residential Expert Group)