Highlights from the Silicon Valley Connext Conference: Innovations, Partnerships, and the Future of IIoT

After convening in Munich and Boston earlier this year, RTI’s DDS User’s Group hosted its Silicon Valley edition of the Connext Conference last week. From its inaugural event in London over four years ago, the conference has served as a collaborative forum where DDS users share real‑world experiences, insights, and challenges that resonate across diverse industries.

Over the years we’ve seen compelling presentations in fields ranging from autonomous vehicles and wind farms to large telescopes, flying cars, underwater and medical robots, drilling systems, radar platforms, and even automated fish farms—underscoring the breadth of DDS’s applicability.

Last week’s agenda included customer case studies spanning autonomous driving, deep‑sea robotics, and a surgical bronchoscopy platform. We also welcomed partners—MathWorks, Qt, QNX, and Mocana—to showcase their integrations with the RTI Connext platform. All presentations will be posted on the RTI Community site shortly, and you can view event photos here.

The conference provided a prime opportunity to preview upcoming product developments. We launched Connext 6, gathering invaluable user feedback. Our CTO outlined the strategic direction for the RTI platform, while the research team presented a monitoring architecture for DDS‑based IIoT systems, demonstrating how operational monitoring delivers clear insights into system health. Product architects delivered a deep dive into Connext 6’s advancements, designed to support larger and more demanding IIoT use cases:

• Large data streaming via Flat Data and optimized SHMEM transfer mode.
• System evolution with DDS Extensible Types and enhanced Routing Service capabilities.
• Security built on the DDS Secure pluggable architecture, now featuring protection kinds, data tagging, and DDS Security support for Connext Micro.
• XML‑based application creation tools for Connext Micro.
• Next‑generation Routing Service.
• Next‑generation Recording Service with improved performance, a pluggable storage API, and on‑the‑fly data tagging.
• Numerous performance enhancements.

Connext 6 is a milestone release; the conference covered only a snapshot of its capabilities. For full details, visit RTI Connext 6 and our blog.

A highlight of the event was the inaugural RTI Advisory Board panel, moderated by CEO Stan Schneider. The board—featuring industry veterans Scott McNealy, KT Neumann, Raiford Smith, and Thomas Baptiste—led an interactive discussion titled “How We’re Driving the Future of the IIoT.” Attendees praised the board’s expertise and the depth of the dialogue.

The second day concluded with a behind‑the‑scenes tour of RTI’s IIoT lab, located a short drive from the Computer History Museum. The lab showcases a wide array of IIoT systems, real‑time operating systems, networking infrastructure, and the software automation processes that underpin our development cycle.

We look forward to welcoming you at next year’s Connext Conference, where we’ll continue to hear how our users are innovating with RTI Connext.