Alibaba Cloud senior expert Gu De: talk about my views on Huawei HarmonyOS 2.0

On June 2nd, Huawei officially released HarmonyOS 2.0. There were various discussions on the Internet for a while. Some praised Huawei for adding glory to the domestic OS, and some said that it was still using Android shells. Let me talk about some of my views. .

HarmonyOS2.0 feature introduction

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This Hongmeng conference released 6 features for HarmonyOS2.0, namely:

1. One as All, All as One: Using a full stack decoupling architecture, the supported device RAM size ranges from 128KB to GB level, such as fans (KB level), watches (MB level), mobile phones (GB level), all only need An operating system (HarmonyOS 2.0).
2. Distributed technology: referring to the computer hardware bus, build an "invisible" distributed soft bus between 1+8+N devices, which has the characteristics of self-discovery, self-organizing network, high bandwidth, and low latency, and free combination of hardware according to needs .
3. Unified control center: A unified control center that controls all the devices mounted on the distributed soft bus with one interface, and can be used on different devices, so that you can control all kinds of home appliances, such as home appliances, on a mobile phone or even a watch.
4. Hyper terminal: Combine multiple terminals (such as mobile phones and TVs) into a hyper terminal. Through a unified control center, it is very convenient to combine mobile phones and TVs into a hyper terminal, and the mobile phone can use the TV screen.
5. Distributed programming framework: A distributed programming framework is proposed, which abstracts the various capabilities of devices into atomic services, instead of mobile apps, and realizes the circulation of services between devices in the form of cards without installation.
6. Full stack optimization: Provide a better performance experience through full stack optimization. Optimization points include storage, display, etc.

era of Internet of Everything and Intelligent of Everything, the complicated connection of 160cec25babf4b, the cumbersome control, and the fragmented experience of , and the conversion from device-centric to content-centric (content in each device Freely circulate between).

HarmonyOS overall architecture

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This is the overall architecture of HarmonyOS, from bottom to top are the kernel layer, system service layer, framework layer and application layer.

At the kernel level, HarmonyOS currently has two kernels: Linux Kernel (mainly used in mobile phones) and LiteOS (used in watches, fans, etc.). Although Huawei claims that HarmonyOS is a set of operating systems, in essence, there are still two sets. But Huawei’s ambitions definitely go beyond this. On the one hand, on the demand side of the system service layer, Huawei will definitely formulate standards for the kernel so that more kernels can come in. On the other hand, the microkernel that Huawei previously advertised may also Will be a direction used to unify the kernel, we continue to pay attention to whether it can be unified.

At the system service layer, Huawei has expanded various distributed technologies, such as distributed soft bus, distributed data management and distributed task scheduling, and put forward various system capabilities on this basis, which are divided into four categories: basic system Capability subsystem set, basic software service subsystem set, enhanced software service subsystem set and hardware service subsystem set. Among them, the most important distributed related technology is the concentration of the system's basic capability subsystems.

The framework layer mainly defines the application development framework and UI development framework. In the UI development framework, in order to solve the problem of user experience fragmentation, the UI's cross-screen interaction is unified; in the application development framework, the atomic capability of FA/PA is also proposed, and the card-based ready-to-use technology is used to break the application The pattern of the market reduces the customer acquisition cost of installing applications.

The application layer is mainly for different applications in different scenarios. No longer.

The relationship between

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In a word, the relationship between HarmonyOS and Android is:

HarmonyOS (mobile terminal) = OpenHarmony + AOSP + HMS

After upgrading Hongmeng from Android on the mobile phone side, AOSP is fully retained (some optimizations will be made in the JVM virtual machine, file system, etc. to reflect Hongmeng's "fast"), and it is fully compatible with the original Android APP, and no APP upgrade is required. The Hongmeng system on the phone side contains a complete Android, so it is suspected of being an "Android case". This is also a helpless move for ecological compatibility. Only as the number of Hongmeng APPs in the picture is increasing, when the Android APP is completely replaced, there is no need to cover.

OpenHarmony is an open source project established after Huawei declared that the Hongmeng system is open source. It is very popular, including the various feature codes released this time. Huawei's attitude towards ecology is evident. Two versions of LiteOS are open sourced in OpenHarmony, the M and A versions, corresponding to the Cortex M and A series of chips. In theory, it can cover devices with memory below 4GB. It is currently used in weak interaction devices such as smart homes and watches.

Huawei has proposed a complete set of Hongmeng APIs, encapsulating all Android APIs, and adding interfaces such as distributed data synchronization and distributed RPC. For a specific APP, there may be an Android version and a Hongmeng version in the future, both of which can run on the Hongmeng system, but the Hongmeng version APP cannot run on Android.

Hongmeng's supporting HMS is not open source, and it will build a "Hongmeng App Store" similar to Google Play. This is something that other domestic mobile phone manufacturers are extremely reluctant to see when they want to switch to Hongmeng, so HMS currently does not force other mobile phone manufacturers to adopt it. The results of this part of the game remain to be observed.

In general, Huawei's "Poetry and Distance" replaces Android layer by layer from top to bottom, but the "immediate ambition" is fully compatible with all apps in Android's existing ecosystem, while adding support for the new features of Hongmeng distributed.

Next, let's take a look at the technical details of "distributed" in the figure above.

HarmonyOS core technology: distributed technology

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The core and bottom technology of OpenHarmony is distributed technology, which can be seen from the following points:

1. From the perspective of publicity, HarmonyOS focuses on various scenario-based distributed capabilities.
2. From a brand perspective, the HarmonyOS ecological brand is HarmonyOS Connect, and Connect emphasizes distributed interconnection.
3. From a technical point of view, the main technical difference between HarmonyOS and Android is the distributed capability.

The core of the distributed technology is the distributed soft bus. The technical goal of the distributed soft bus is to allow users to have the same experience as using a hardware bus, and to conveniently combine hardware devices freely.

The soft bus development emphasizes minimalism. It mainly includes two types of interfaces, one is session establishment, and the other is data transmission. Users can transfer data on a high-bandwidth, highly reliable data path by calling several APIs.

The core technology includes multi-hop ad hoc networking, multi-protocol hybrid networking and minimal transmission protocol.

1. The multi-hop ad hoc network completes the self-organizing network construction of the devices in the local area network. The hybrid network is used to complete the hybrid network of multiple different connection methods such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. There will be lightweight gateways for data conversion between different network connection methods.
2. The minimalist transmission protocol simplifies the 5-layer protocol into 1 layer, simplifies the protocol hierarchy, and reduces the interaction overhead between layers. For performance, Huawei has made a lot of optimizations in the combination of software and hardware. Ensure the performance indicators of the distributed soft bus. According to analysis, the high throughput and high fault tolerance claimed by HarmonyOS are actually based on the latest technology test data such as Wi-Fi6.

On the basis of distributed soft bus, it has built distributed core technical capabilities, distributed data management, distributed task scheduling and distributed security:

1. Distributed data management provides services such as file system and database. On the basis of the distributed soft bus high-speed channel, various file caching and prefetching strategies are optimized to obtain better performance than Samba (a local area network resource sharing protocol).
2. Distributed task scheduling supports operations such as remote startup, invocation and migration of cross-device applications. It is also based on the low-level high-speed distributed soft bus and scheduling strategy to achieve efficient RPC (remote scheduling). Through this capability, users can call the capabilities of different smart hardware in the local area network, such as screens, cameras, and computing power.
3. Distributed security realizes mutual trust authentication and device group management capabilities when point-to-point devices are connected, application signatures and verification, system permissions and other capabilities.

Why does Huawei have a heavy force on HarmonyOS and how did it do it?

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In my opinion, the core starting point for Huawei's heavy tactics on HarmonyOS is to serve its own consumer business. After all, Huawei is already a hardware brand company. The consumer business product line ranges from mobile phones to tablets, to TVs, watches, speakers, etc. The gradual expansion of the product line requires a set of operating systems to unify. It is just that, based on the trend of Internet of Everything, the idea of a full-scene "super terminal" is proposed. In short, HarmonyOS is built for each single product in the "super terminal" Yes, this is where Huawei has always claimed that the positioning of HarmonyOS and Android is different.

Technically, as mentioned earlier, HarmonyOS uses distributed technology as the core to solve the three major problems of complex connection, cumbersome control, and fragmented experience faced by the full-scene "super terminal".

In terms of ecology, Huawei also hopes to use HarmonyOS to recreate three ecosystems: application market ecology, HarmonyOS Connect IoT device connection ecology, and open source operating system ecology.

summary

The advantage of HarmonyOS is its 1+8+N strategy. HarmonyOS aims at Huawei’s next-generation super portal to create an operating system and polish the distributed core technology to solve the three major problems of complex connection, cumbersome control, and fragmented experience. With mobile phones as the core, it focuses on smart travel, smart home, sports health, smart office, and audio-visual entertainment. 5 major scenarios, to build a consistent experience of the “super terminal” in all scenarios; and to create three ecosystems (application market ecology, HarmonyOS Connect IoT device connection ecology, and open source operating system ecology). This year, the scale is expected to reach 300 million (about 600 million mobile phones on the Internet can support upgrades to Hongmeng OS), and it will continue to be compatible with the existing Android APP ecosystem. But its disadvantage is the role conflict, which is both an athlete and a referee.

If you comment on HarmonyOS from the "Four Views":

1. Look at "self": The key to the success or failure of Hongmeng OS lies in the development of Huawei mobile phones? Will the death of the mobile phone business actually make Hongmeng OS Phoenix Nirvana? For example, the recent Honor mobile phone, after being separated from Huawei, its market share has returned from 3% to 9.5%, realizing the rebirth of Nirvana.
2. Look at the competition: The core of mobile phone manufacturers such as Xiaomi and OV is to control UI interaction, application market distribution, and IoT device connection ecology, and it is likely that Hongmeng OS will not be directly adopted.
3. Look at the industry: Compared with Google, the mobile operating system is an ecological battle. It needs to spend a lot of money to cultivate the ecology. It is a model of losing money and making money. It depends on how Huawei abandons its short-term interests.
4. Look at the market: In the 2C consumer Internet field, the full-scene "super terminal" experience is a very good experience, and this good experience must be the future development trend.