Press Room

Advancements in the DDS standard play a future-forward, pivotal role in enabling secure communication across complex applications

BOSTON, MA – JULY 24, 2024 – The DDS Foundation announces two significant advancements for the Data Distribution Service™ (DDS™) standard. The DDS Security Specification Version 1.2 provides an updated, more robust security model and Service Plugin Interface (SPI) architecture for DDS-compliant implementations. The DDS Foundation also released the results of its first data interoperability testing across DDS vendors, which independently proves the ability to exchange data across DDS implementations.

The DDS Security 1.2 specification adds important enhancements for long-running systems. It includes algorithms that are National Security Agency (NSA) approved for TOP SECRET; pre-shared keys to harden against DoS attacks; key revisions that support certificate revocation, expiration, and access rights changes; improved ways to manage permissions for large systems; and more.

“As systems become more interconnected and intelligent, protecting data against cyberattacks and unauthorized participants becomes increasingly challenging. The first step to securing a distributed system is to protect its data,” said Gerardo Pardo, co-Chair of the DDS Special Interest Group (OMG) and CTO at Real-Time Innovations (RTI). “The latest version of the DDS Security spec integrates modern best practices to protect systems. As a publish/subscribe protocol, DDS helps ensure that only authorized users and nodes can transmit and receive data, providing zero-trust, end-to-end data protection, and data origin authentication.”

Interoperability Testing

Seamless data sharing is at the core of the DDS standard. Applications built on DDS are designed to rapidly exchange data across multiple systems based on an open publish/subscribe protocol. To validate vendor interoperability, the OMG® DDS Special Interest Group (DDS SIG) conducted a series of tests on DDS using the interoperability RTPS (Real-Time Publish Subscribe) protocol among various implementations of the DDS standard.

“This testing is important for the industry,” says Nick Stavros, VP of Technology for the DDS Foundation and CEO of Jackrabbit Consulting. “It provides current and future DDS users with confidence in the DDS standard itself and confirms that applications can be built using multiple implementations.”

These tests covered a wide range of DDS functionality and features and are accompanied by comprehensive reports to facilitate analysis. To ensure consistency, the interoperability testing process is automated in GitHub Actions. Test results and detailed reports are automatically generated, providing specific insights into the interoperability status per vendor per feature. DDS users are invited to view the test results here.

DDS is an open data connectivity standard that helps CIOs, system architects, software engineers, and developers deliver real-time data throughout their business-critical IoT systems. The Object Management Group® (OMG®) maintains, optimizes, and evolves the family of DDS Specifications via rigorous standards processes. Download the Data Distribution Service™ (DDS™) Security Specification Version 1.2 from the OMG website. Access the latest DDS vendor interoperability tests here.

About the DDS Foundation
The DDS Foundation is a non-profit group formed by OMG® to advance the use of DDS™ in high-performance and distributed applications. The Foundation governs a global community of vendors, users, government institutions, and universities to realize the potential of the DDS standard in all industries. Foundation members ensure the ongoing and long-term growth and success of DDS through the following: testing conformance and interoperability, defining industry-specific data models, promoting industry-specific adaptations and implementations of DDS, developing user case libraries, and launching educational initiatives. Visit the DDS Foundation website.

About OMG
When tech organizations, governments, and academia must solve discrete pieces of a technology puzzle or discuss matters of common interest, they often seek to join or form a consortium. Since 1989, Object Management Group® (OMG®) has created and nurtured a productive community with common technology interests and problems to resolve. OMG communities include Augmented Reality Enterprise Alliance (AREA), BPM+ Health, Consortium for Information and Software Quality™ (CISQ™), Digital Twin Consortium® (DTC), OMG Standards Development Organization (SDO®), and Responsible Computing (RC™). OMG is global, not-for-profit, and vendor-neutral. Visitwww.omg.org for more information.

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