This document discusses Ricoh's use of OSGi on its office device platforms. It provides background on Ricoh and its product lines. It then discusses the evolution of Ricoh's embedded software architecture and its use of an SDK/J architecture. It introduces OSGi and describes what it provides, the reasons Ricoh chose to use it, difficulties encountered, pros and cons, and whether Ricoh would use it again. It also includes a brief biography of the author.

1. OSGi on the Ricoh Office Device
Platform
Abdalla Bushnaq

2. 2
• Short Introduction of Ricoh
• Ricoh’s Product Line-up, Global Network, Consolidated Sales, MFP
Market Share.
• The Ricoh Office Device Platform
• Platform Evolution, Embedded Software Architecture, SDK/J
Architecture, Types of Applications.
• OSGi
• The OSGi Platform, What is provided? Why OSGi? Difficulties, Pros and
Cons of using OSGi, Would Ricoh decide to use OSGi again? A Problem
Example from Real Life.

3. 3
Abdalla Bushnaq
Is an Assistant General Manager at Ricoh.
Heads a team of software engineers at Ricoh's
European Development and Support Centre in
Germany.
The team develops tailored solutions for European
customers that help them to manage larger numbers
of Ricoh multifunctional office devices. This may
include solutions to control costs, maintenance
management, as well as embedded software to
optimize the MFPs functionality to the customers'
need.
His team also provides Europe-wide support to 3rd party
developers that want to develop solutions for the
Ricoh embedded Java platform.

4. 4
Ricoh’s Product Line-up
Image Processing Device
MFP(Aficio1105) Printer (Aficio
AP 3800C)
Others
Digital Duplicator Fax Scanner
Digital Camera DVD+RW/+R CD-R/RW
Semiconductors
Watches
Software
Thermal products

5. 5
Ricoh Industrial
de Mexico,
S.A. de C.V.
Ricoh Australia Pty,Ltd.
Ricoh France S.A.
NRG France S.A.
Rex-Rotary S.A.
Ricoh Europe B.V.
Ricoh Nederland B.V.
Ricoh Finance Nederland
B.V.NRG Benelux B.V.
Ricoh UK Products Ltd.
Ricoh Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd.
Asia Pacific Regional Headquarters
Ricoh
Austria GmbH
Gestetner
(Israel) Limited
Ricoh España S.A.
NRG Group
Spain S.A.
Ricoh Deutschland GmbH
NRG Deutschland GmbH
Ricoh Electronic Technology
LTD.(Beijing)
Ricoh Polska Sp.zo.o.
Mitsui-Ricoh CIS Ltd.
Ricoh Electronics,Inc.
Tustin Plant
Santa Ana Plant
Irvine Plant
Ricoh Innovation,Inc.
Ricoh Corporation
America’s Regional
Headquarters
Ricoh Finance
Corporation
Ricoh European Digital Solution Center
Ricoh Finland Oy
Ricoh
Industrie France S.A.
NRG Belgium S.A.
Ricoh
Thailand Ltd.
Ricoh
Philippines,
Inc.
Sindo Ricoh Co.,Ltd
Ricoh China Co., Ltd.
Ricoh Electronic Technology
Ltd. (China)
Lanier(Australia)
Pty.Ltd.
Ricoh New Zealand Limited
Ricoh Norge A.S.
Shanghai Ricoh Facsimile Co.,Ltd.
Ricoh International(Shanghai)Co.,Ltd.
Ricoh Eleme Office Machine(H.K.)Ltd.
Lanier(Schweiz) AG.
Ricoh
Hungary Kft.
Ricoh Canada Inc.
Ricoh Electronics,Inc.
Georgia Plant
Lanier Worldwide,Inc.
Ricoh India Limited
Ricoh Malaysia Sdn. Bhd.
Ricoh Singapore
Pte.Ltd.
Ricoh Wellingborough Products Ltd.
NRG Scandinavia AB
NRG Scandinavia A/S
Lanier de Panama,S.A.
Lanier de Costa Rica,S.A.
Lanier de EI Salvador,
S.A. de C.V.
Lanier de
Guatemala,S.A.
Lanier de Chile, S.A.
China Headquarters
Ricoh Company,Ltd.
Ricoh Group Headquarters
European Regional
Headquarters
Marketing and Other Operations
R&D and Manufacturing Facilities
Ricoh Corporation
Office solutions and systems
Development Group
Ricoh Software
Technology(Shanghai)Co.,Ltd.
Ricoh International Logistics(H.K.)Ltd.
Ricoh Hong Kong Ltd.
Ricoh Asia Industry Ltd.
Ricoh Component(H.K.)Ltd.
Ricoh Elemex(H.K.)Ltd.
Ricoh Asia Industry(Shenzhen)Ltd.
Dongguan Ricoh Eleme Office Machine
Co.,Ltd.
Ricoh Microelectronics(H.K.)Ltd.
Ricoh Dianzhuang
(Shenzhen)Electronics Co.,Ltd.
Ricoh UK Ltd.
NRG Group UK Limited
NRG Group PLC
Ricoh Latin America, Inc.
NRG Gestetner
South Africa(Pty)Ltd.
NRG
International
Limited
Ricoh Argentina S.A.
Gestetner do Brazil S.A.
Tohoku Ricoh(Fuzhou)
Printing Products Co.,Ltd.
Shanghai Ricoh
Digital Equipment Co.,Ltd.
Ricoh Software Research
Center(Beijing)Co.,Ltd.
Ricoh Mexicana, S.A. de C.V.
Ricoh South America
Distribution Center S.A.
Gestetner
Colombia S.A.
Lanier Colombia,S.A.
Ricoh Puerto Rico,Inc.
Lanier Dominicana,S.A.
NRG Gestetner Ireland Limited
GR Advanced Materials Ltd.
Ricoh Italia S.p.A.
NRG Italia S.p.A.
Ricoh Global Network

6. 6
Consolidated Sales
11th Consecutive Year of Increased Sales
(US$ million)
International
Japan Domestic
16,637
16,246
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 20042003
16,954
15,629
14,376
13,52413,32713,115
12,299
10,402
20,000
16,000
4000
0
8000
12,000

7. 7
Ricoh MFP Market Share

8. 8
Platform Evolution
1965
Copier/Printer/Scanner/Fax
1994 2000
Copier/Printer/Scanner/Fax
GW Architecture
Standard
Platform
ScannerFaxCopierPrinter
2004
Copier/Printer/Scanner/Fax
Embedded SA.
Open
Platform

9. 9
Embedded Software Architecture
J2ME
C
Custom User Applications
BSD
UNIX
Functions controlled by SDK.
- LCD Panel
- Scanner
- Printer
- FAX
- etc.
Network functions:
- HTTP, ftp, SMTP, SMB, etc.
- Web Services (SOAP WSDL)
- etc.
Supported devics:
- MFP (color/B&W)
- LP (color/B&W)
- Wide Format
2004
Embedded S.A.
Open Platform
Copier/Printer/Scanner/Fax

10. 10
SDK/J Architecture

11. 11
Types of Applications
• Panel Operation-Oriented "Thin Client“ (Xlet)
• This type of Java technology application uses the MFP as focal point for
paper-based workflows.
• Examples include scan-to-server and print on demand.
• Java Servlet Based Web Application
• Web server applications such as device monitoring.
• Background Application
• Daemon-type of applications such as a web service print server.
And many more…the possibilities are only limited by your
imagination!

12. 12
The OSGi Platform
OSGiFramework
J2ME(CDC+FP)CVM
Application
OSGiFramework
OSGiService
Service

13. 13
What is provided?
• OSGi version 3
• This was the latest version available at development start.
• Knopflerfish version 1.3.3 .
• Provided Bundles
• ACR Manager Service
• ApplicationManager Service
• Server Service
• Util Service
• Net Service
• Au Manager Service
• MultiXletManager Service
• PanelManager Service
• FunctionManager
• SystemEventManager Service
• Taskbar Service
• SasManager Service
• ComManager Service
• RemoteInstManager Service
• Activation Service

14. 14
Why OSGi?
• Enable dynamic install/uninstall/update the embedded apps
• Office equipments requires automatic update to reduce maintenance
• Need deploying custom applications to large number of devices
• Easy to add system level bundles
• Add/Remove optional APIs easily
• Publish/Subscribe required APIs
• Light Servlet support
• Tomcat is too heavy.
• JETTY requires more memory and xlet support was more difficult to
realize.
• Decided to use Knopflerfish.

15. 15
Difficulties
Features that Ricoh wanted to use but was not able to.
• It is not possible to use the same bundle with a different version.
• Knopflerfish limitation.
• OSGi supports memory or HD cache method, but it can only be turned
on or off for the whole platform. It is not possible to choose for separate
bundles.
• Using a bundle as a service was not possible to get running.
• Difficult to use the OSGi advantages
• You have to lean a lot.
• Example: security implementation in http service.
Org.osgi.service.http.httpcontext handleSecurity method.

16. 16
Pros and Cons of using OSGi
• Pros
• Independencies of bundles.
• Updating without reboot.
• Support for embedded development.
• Creating an independent class loader for every bundle.
• Cons
• It does not match the lifecycle of a bundle on a MFP.
• Pause, resume (Xlet)
• Various Sleep-modes
• It is not possible to get all bundle status.
• Pause, sleep mode, memory consumption…

17. 17
A Problem Example From Real Life
• Bug in Knopflerfish
• Remote updating a bundle will unzip the included jar files to create a
cache.
• Real Life
• Whole embedded Java platform is running from a 64MB SD card.
• Effect
• SD card was full after about 3 updates.
• How?
• Cluster size of the SD card was 16KB.
• This caused the unzipping of a relative small jar file with a lot of small
files to fill much more space on the card than expected.
• Solution
• Added functionality to the RemoteInstManager Service to clear the
bundle cache after rebooting the platform.

18. 18
Would Ricoh decide to use OSGi again?
• Yes!
• Actually doing so in the next embedded platform generation.

19. 19
Thank you!