3/26/2014

Platform Technologies

What is Platform?

• A computing platform is, in the most general

sense, whatever pre-existing environment a
piece of software is designed to run within,
obeying its constraints, and making use of its
facilities.
• platform is any base of technologies on which
other technologies or processes are built.

What it contains?

• Typical platforms may include

– A hardware architecture
– An operating system (OS)
and
– Runtime libraries.

“It could be the combination of all

or at least one of it”

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Examples

• Probably the most familiar platform is Microsoft

Windows running on the x86 architecture.
• Macintosh, custom Apple Computer hardware
and Mac OS operating system, now migrated to x86.
• Android is an operating system based on the Linux
kernel

Hardware Architecture

• A set of disciplines that describes a computer

system by specifying its parts and their relations
provides physical environment.
• Types
– Commodity computing platforms
– Video game consoles
– RISC
– Midrange computers
– Mainframe computers
– Supercomputer

Software Frameworks

• An abstraction in which software providing

generic functionality can be selectively
changed by additional user-written code.
• It is an universal, reusable software platform
to develop software applications, products
and solutions.

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Examples

• The Java platform is a virtual machine platform

which runs on many operating systems and
hardware types.

Operating Systems

• A collection of software that manages

computer hardware resources and provides
common services for computer programs.
• The operating system is an essential
component of the system software in a
computer system.
• Application programs usually require an
operating system to function.

Examples