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In automobiles, the amount of data generated, stored and collected – and the number of applications 
deployed within vehicles to process all this content – has increased dramatically over the last 
decade. Due to digital transformation, the modern automobile is now a supercomputer on wheels. 
Vehicle workloads can run concurrently on today’s multi-service integration platforms thanks to 
high-powered silicon that’s vital to mobile computation platforms.

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In a complex system like a vehicle, we want the granularity of those released software payloads to 
be smaller than an entire system to parallelize CI/CD/CT. This is done using element separation.  
Element separation is a software architecture best practice for many reasons as it helps with:

1.   Preventing fault propagation so we know which payload caused a software (SW) failure.
2.   Provisioning of compute and memory resources so we can engineer the system.
3.   Simplifying implementation for SW teams by separating functions from each other.
4.   Securing credentials to the time and place needed - the “least privilege principle.”
5.   Providing various producers of SW (e.g., ISVs) their own private execution environment.
6.   Easier management of software lifecycle using granular independent SW elements.
7.   Containment of software with specialized core values (e.g., safety or real-time SW).
8.   Reuse of software elements across systems, projects and hardware.
9.   Workload orchestration and optimization such as SW load balancing and scaling.

These separated software elements are the vehicle applications and services that are activated as 
one or more multi-threaded processes which comprise the vehicle workloads.  It is becoming 
increasingly helpful to wrap one or more of these services and applications into discrete operating 
systems (OS) containers so that they can avoid interference from other services and applications 
with which they don’t need to be tightly coupled. One of the advantages of containerizing services 
and applications is that they can use, and be delivered with, an OS that is composed of the optimal 
set of files, libraries and support services for their needs.

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This standardization will allow automotive systems to be assembled from ready-made software 
payloads within the automotive ecosystem regardless of whether they are in-house, third-party or 
open source payloads.  There are many initiatives within the automotive industry to create such 
multi-service integration platforms, which I will collectively label Vehicle Integration Platform 
(VIP) architecture.  Many top automotive companies have already announced VIP technologies.  Even 
though some of those VIP initiatives are referred to as an OS, they offer much more than just an 
operating system.  VIPs include capabilities on top as an integration and management infrastructure 
that helps connect and orchestrate vehicles while also separating vehicle services and vehicle 
applications from the various execution environments and hardware that the VIP abstracts.

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With such metadata, the VIP software would be able to predict if the system can afford to run a 
vehicle service or vehicle application given the available vehicle resources – without trying and 
failing, or without denying resources to some other possibly higher-priority application.  Once we 
do this, we will be a step closer to achieving software hyperintegration, which is highly- 
automated software integration.

This is the type of challenge that is best solved under the guidance and collective expertise 
offered through an industry alliance such as COVESA.  Together, companies can create a standard 
that enables low-code/no-code system hyperintegration of software from a standardized automotive 
ecosystem. This allows companies building new VIP-based vehicles to integrate vehicle extensions, 
services and applications from other organizations – and the converse is that it allows ISVs to 
provide specialized ready-made software that can easily be
integrated into any VIP-based vehicle.  Taking                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Taking this road – everyone wins.