New Mender Release by Northern.tech Simplifies Complex OTA Updates with Service Provider Functionality

PALO ALTO – February 18, 2025 – Northern.tech, the leader in device lifecycle management,  announces the new release of Mender, including the much-anticipated Service Provider functionality. While Mender has supported multi-tenancy for years, the new Service Provider feature streamlines the security and management of isolated tenants across diverse environments.

Separate business units, managed service providers, or product teams – the Mender Service Provider functionality seamlessly enables the secure and controlled management of the OTA update infrastructure, access, update deployment, and product changes.

The increasing complexity of secure over-the-air (OTA) updates

Today, nearly every product is 'smart,' with software central to its operation and value creation. As the backbone of software, the over-the-air update infrastructure delivers bug fixes, security patches, new features, and partial or whole updates. Yet, the underlying OTA update infrastructure is often homegrown and proprietary to one or a few product lines. When one solution serves an entire organization, product teams face challenges in securing and managing multiple products within one platform.

Managing diverse, heterogeneous environments with ease

OEMs must manage multiple products with multiple software versions – each with its own dependencies, environments, and requirements. With the new Service Provider feature, Mender enables OEMs to leverage a single platform while providing secure, isolated tenants throughout its organization.

Isolate customers or clients: Security, regulatory, or risk management – isolating customers or clients removes the possibility that one customer can affect another in any way. The Service Provider tenant is a simple way to manage multiple tenants securely. In this scenario, a Service Provider tenant admin can give customers unique access to a separate, isolated Mender tenant or manage customers' tenants on their behalf, depending on skillset, control, and service requirements.

Isolate development environments: To ensure security and manage risk, distinct, isolated environments are often required throughout the product development process. Development, staging, and production may require isolated tenants to avoid changes impacting other tenants. With a Service Provider tenant setup, it is impossible for test data to interfere with production systems. Isolated regional tenants can also help manage regulatory or security requirements. In either scenario, each environment has its own set of devices and updates, ensuring any actions remain in that environment alone.

Isolate divisions or products: Large enterprises typically comprise multiple business units, vertical divisions, and product lines. With a Service Provider tenant, large enterprises can now isolate Mender per business unit, division, or product line, ensuring each does not interfere with the other while retaining central visibility and control over the tenants and their usage.

Realizing a secure software-centric future

"As we've seen throughout history, infrastructure must evolve to meet new usages and demands," states Eystein Stenberg, co-founder and CTO of Northern.tech. "OTA update infrastructure will only become more pivotal with AI, edge applications, and new technology. We're already seeing the demand for OTA update infrastructure to support more sophisticated, complex, and diverse environments."

With Mender, OEMs and managed service providers can:

• Ensure secure development and deployments across diverse products, projects, or clients
• Increase competitiveness by facilitating shorter software iteration cycles and time-to-market
• Enable faster deployments with a consolidated management infrastructure
• Realize higher operational efficiency by eliminating rework and bespoke solutions

"For core infrastructure, like OTA update management, it is crucial to deliver a future-proof solution," states Stenberg. "Our customers are already experiencing the increasing complexity of IoT product development and management. With Mender, they rely on and trust a solution that makes their lives easier while remaining secure."

Learn more about the new Service Provider feature and others: What's new in Mender: Introducing Service Provider tenant and new advanced features.

About Mender
Mender offers robust, secure, and customizable over-the-air (OTA) software updates for smart devices. Powering OTA software updates for more than a million devices worldwide over nearly a decade, Mender boasts a proven track record with Fortune 1000 clients, including Airbus, Lyft, Volkswagen, Siemens, Thales, and ZF Group.

Learn more about OTA software update management.

Mender is developed and maintained by Northern.tech Founded in 2008, Northern.tech is the leader in device lifecycle management with a mission to secure the world's connected devices.