Back

Defining secure & robust software updates

| OTA, Mender Enterprise
Download now

Table of contents

Building infrastructure solutions

How to solve your production-grade software update requirements

At their essence, software updates are simple – transfer data from one place to another. But, just as a tent, a bicycle, or a recreational player differ from a house, a car, or an Olympic athlete, production-grade software updates fit for enterprise commercial products are different.

The qualifying process surrounding software updates is the difference.

Baseline best practices for production-grade software updates focus on the minimum standards required for most commercial environments and enterprise products.

Managing updates:

  • Can deployments be managed (what device, when, how)? How granular?

  • Can deployments be optimized (i.e., full image, delta)?

  • Do I know the status of an update? Of a device?

  • Is there automatic retry when updates fail? Logging? Error tracking?

  • Can issues by identified? How are issues resolved?

Factoring in the environment:

  • What software is supported? Hardware? OS, applications, AI or containers?

  • Are over-the-air, semi-connected or air-gapped deployments supported?

  • Are external disruptions managed (i.e., connectivity, power, user intervention)?

  • How will it be maintained? Will it scale? Can it support different device fleets?

Ensuring security:

  • How are updates verified? Transmitted? How are devices authenticated?

  • Do products update on initial activation/first boot?

  • Is there multi-factor authentication? RBAC? SSO integration?

  • How are man-in-the-middle attacks prevented? How will security be managed as software, hardware, and threat vectors evolve?

  • Can we easily audit and track user access, update deployments, and devices?

  • Does it comply with applicable regulations or standards? Does it support audit and compliance documentation (i.e., EU Cyber Resilience Act)?

Why enterprises choose Mender

Spend more time innovating — for your customers and business

Building and maintaining a robust, secure, and compliant platform to manage software updates typically requires significant time and resources. The business takes on the initial creation and opportunity costs, diverting resources to the internal platform. Then, the business commits to ongoing stability, maintenance, development, and support costs. In enterprise applications, the total cost of ownership (TCO) often becomes untenable for commerical product or device fleet management.

Mender provides a unified approach and real-time device inventory to deliver faster innovation, reduced costs, and future-proofed operations. A complete connected product update infrastructure, seamlessly manage diverse, heterogeneous products, product lines, and fleets – whether in the field or the factory, over-the-air or air-gapped, from the OS to applications and AI – from a single platform.

With Mender, manage complexity anywhere — device, scale, network, ecosystem, and more.

Clock

Focus on innovation, accelerate time to market. Invest in your product, instead of building and maintaining your own software update infrastructure. Get your products to market faster. Update them reliably. Manage them continuously.
Gear

Integrate seamlessly. Existing and new systems and workflows, today and tomorrow – retain complete control with a 100% API-driven, open source, and anti-lock-in solution complete with product roadmap acceleration.
Phones Ensure end-to-end security. Lower brand risk by keeping your devices secured and compliant. Benefit from built-in security-by-design principles, IoT security standards and best practices, and specialized expertise. Avoid compromises, fines, and product downtime.
Flag Future proof your company. Keep pace with market trends, technology, and consumer shifts. Any device, software, or hardware – future-proof your operations with a battle-tested solution focused on integration. Never be locked into a single provider.

 

Benefit from industry best practices in security, compliance, and risk mitigation, while spending your time where it matters. Choose a professional, purpose-built OTA update solution so you can focus on innovation while delivering greater stability and support for your customers.

 

+10 years

Engineers are confident Mender will support  their business needs for over 10 years, compared to just 2 years with their previous software update solution.

 

 

 

To build, or not to build

Key questions to consider

Innovative startups to the world’s leading companies, organizations frequently encounter the crossroads: whether to build or buy a solution.

In the face of any challenge, the first question asked is has someone else already solved this challenge? Or, is the challenge unique enough that I must solve this on my own?

As you assess your unique situation, consider these questions for your organization.

Value generation

Do you risk:

  • competitive advantage?

  • delaying time-to-market?

  • retaining control?

Are software updates a key differentiator for your business?

Requirements

What are the:

  • technical requirements for your software update infrastructure?

  • security and privacy requirements?

  • regulatory and legal requirements?

How will your software update requirements evolve over the next three to five years?

Costs

What are the:

  • tangible initial costs?

  • intangible opportunity costs?

  • ongoing operational or development costs?

  • ongoing maintenance costs?

  • ongoing support costs?

What will enable higher revenue generation over the next three to five years?

Connected products require a software updates infrastructure that:

Tick Enables innovation. Deploy updates seamlessly – any device, network, environment, or complexity.
Tick Ensures security. Safeguard product, users, and the business – from design to decommission – leveraging industry standards (e.g., ISO, IEC) and facilitating regulatory compliance (e.g., EU CRA).
Tick Optimizes resources. Invest in value generation and minimize waste – whether through remote troubleshooting or network cost management.
Tick Protects operations. Accelerate time-to-market and stay ahead of the competition without compromising standards.
Tick Future-proofs the business. Satisfy today’s requirements with the flexibility to evolve with technology, regulations, consumer expectations, and more.
Tags:

Download the PDF