Why Migrate from Hawkbit?

For years, Hawkbit by the Eclipse Foundation has been a widely used solution for OTA A/B updates, particularly when combined with RAUC. The availability of tools like rauc-hawkbit-updater has made integration relatively straightforward. However, maintaining a self-hosted Hawkbit server comes with significant challenges:

• High Maintenance Overhead: Setting up and maintaining a Hawkbit installation requires ongoing effort, diverting resources from core business operations.
• Security and Compliance Risks: With regulations like the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), ensuring compliance for an in-house Hawkbit installation can be complex and costly.
• Scalability Issues: Self-hosted solutions often struggle to scale efficiently, requiring significant infrastructure investment.
• Unoptimized Resource Usage: Managing Hawkbit servers, databases, and storage demands dedicated expertise and adds unnecessary operational costs.

Instead of spending time and effort on managing Hawkbit infrastructure, companies can select a hosted OTA update service from qbee.io, gaining enhanced security, automation, and reliability while eliminating backend complexity.

Why Choose qbee.io Over Self-Hosted Hawkbit?

qbee.io offers a cloud hosted SaaS solution for OTA updates, including RAUC bundle deployment, with powerful enhancements:

1. Eliminate the Hawkbit Backend
   No need to maintain Hawkbit servers—qbee.io provides a fully managed platform that handles updates securely and efficiently.
2. Seamless RAUC Integration
   qbee.io fully supports RAUC bundles, ensuring a smooth transition without changing the fundamental update mechanism.
3. Adaptive & Streaming Updates
   qbee.io offers adaptive and streaming update features, reducing bandwidth consumption and ensuring reliable updates even in low-bandwidth or unstable network environments.
4. Enhanced Features Beyond OTA Updates
   In addition to secure OTA updates, qbee.io includes:
   • Remote access for troubleshooting
   • Container orchestration for deploying applications
   • Automation to configure and manage devices
   • Metrics & inventory tracking to monitor fleets in real-time
   • Event notifications & alerts for improved observability
   • Groups & Tags for staged and customer specific rollouts
     
     
   • CI/CD to easily create automation pipelines
     
     
5. Reliability and Compliance
   Migrating to qbee.io means delegating security, availability, and scalability to an expert team, backed by an SLA for guaranteed service performance.

How to Migrate from Hawkbit to qbee.io – A Step-By-Step Guide

Migration from Hawkbit + RAUC to qbee.io is straightforward and can be done with no downtime and has no higher risk than any previous update cycle. qbee.io even allows for dual operation, so you can run both systems in parallel during the transition.

Steps to Transition:

1. Integrate qbee.io into Your Yocto Build
   • Add the meta-qbee layer to your Yocto build
   • Configure and bootstrap the qbee-agent as per the instructions given here.
2. Upload RAUC Bundles to qbee.io
3. Instead of pushing updates to your self-hosted Hawkbit server, simply upload them to qbee.io. The platform will handle secure distribution and update deployment.
4. Operate Both Systems in Parallel (Optional)
   • Since rauc-hawkbit-updater is still in the build, you can run both Hawkbit and qbee.io in parallel.
   • This ensures a smooth transition and builds trust in the new system before fully deprecating Hawkbit.
   • You can still update with Hawkbit
5. Decommission Hawkbit
   Once confident in qbee.io’s reliability, you can remove your self-hosted Hawkbit server, freeing up resources and reducing operational costs.

Conclusion: Focus on Your Core Business

Migrating from Hawkbit to qbee.io means offloading operations, security, and compliance concerns while gaining new features and freeing development resources. Instead of maintaining an outdated OTA backend, companies can focus on building and delivering great products.

Let qbee.io handle the complexity of OTA updates—reduce TCO (total cost of ownership) and prepare for CRA – contact us for a demo today!

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