Aonix, the provider of the PERC product line for embedded and real-time Java developers, announces the release of PERC Ultra 5.1 cross development and target support on Wind River's VxWorks 6.6 real-time operating system and Wind River Workbench development suite. With more than 1 million field systems in markets such as aerospace, defense, telecommunications, industrial control and robotics, PERC Ultra well suits the broad real-time market leadership of VxWorks. These joint solutions will enable developers to take advantage of Java language capabilities while ensuring that critical deterministic behavior requirements can still be met.

Boasting the largest number of deployments for any commercial real-time virtual machine, PERC Ultra has proven itself as an embedded virtual machine that is scalable, manageable, reliable and secure. In addition to separating it from its competitors, these characteristics make it ideal for VxWorks developers who primarily focus on the safety- and mission-critical space. This version of PERC Ultra allows the PERC Virtual Machine to run as a real-time process, protecting Java applications from being corrupted by any errant C applications running on the same system. PERC Ultra also takes advantage of Wind River Advanced Networking Technologies, new with this port to VxWorks 6.6.

Notably, PERC Ultra's port to VxWorks complements an earlier port of Aonix's PERC Pico, a low-level, resource-constrained virtual machine for deeply embedded hard real-time applications and components. For the first time, Wind River developers can design the same Java language advantages of portability, scalability and modularity into applications from top to bottom, thereby streamlining application development, debugging and ongoing program maintenance.

"Most of our customers develop complex mission- and safety-critical systems," noted Rob Hoffman, vice president and general manager for Aerospace and Defense at Wind River. "Prior to Aonix's PERC family, Java technologies were unable to address these needs effectively or efficiently. Our customers are looking forward to extending their Java applications through to the device-driver level to maximize efficiency and to gain the additional portability such an extension ensures."

"PERC Ultra and VxWorks have together provided world-class tools and execution environments for a number of years," noted Gary Cato, Aonix director of marketing. "Wind River's customers have stringent applications requirements. We are proud of the fact that our combined solutions have met their criteria."