Engineering tool, controller, and control system

A controller comprising:

• hardware;
• a host operating system;
• a virtual machine to be implemented on the host operating system;
• a guest operating system that runs on the virtual machine;
• a hardware-allocation-data storage;
• an allocation-condition storage configured to store therein hardware allocation conditions for the host operating system and the guest operating system;
• a controller process unit configured to:
• receive hardware allocation data from an engineering tool, the hardware allocation data representing the hardware allocation to each of the host operating system and the guest operating system,
• after determining that the hardware allocation data satisfies the allocation conditions stored in the allocation-condition storage, save the hardware allocation data in the hardware-allocation-data storage, and
• after determining that the hardware allocation data fails to satisfy the allocation conditions, refrain from saving the hardware allocation data in the hardware-allocation-data storage;
• a guest process unit configured to:
• run by the guest operating system, and
• execute control processing to an external, target device, using the hardware allocated to the guest operating system in accordance with the hardware allocation data stored in the hardware-allocation-data storage;
• and
• a host process unit configured to:
• run by the host operating system, and
• execute control processing to the target device, using the hardware allocated to the host operating system in accordance with the hardware allocation data stored in the hardware-allocation-data storage.

A control system comprising an engineering tool and a controller, wherein

• the engineering tool comprises:
• a tool-side hardware-allocation-data storage configured to store therein hardware allocation data to be downloaded to a controller, the controller that executes a host operating system, the hardware allocation data representing hardware allocation to each of the host operating system and a guest operating system that runs on a virtual machine implemented on the host operating system;
• a tool-side allocation-condition storage configured to store therein the hardware allocation conditions for the host operating system and the guest operating system;
• and
• a tool process unit configured to:
• cause a display to display a settings screen for inputting the hardware allocation data,
• after determining that the hardware allocation data input to the settings screen satisfies the allocation conditions stored in the tool-side allocation-condition storage, save the input hardware allocation data in the tool-side hardware-allocation-data storage, and
• after determining that the input hardware allocation data fails to satisfy the allocation conditions stored in the tool-side allocation-condition storage, refrain from saving the input hardware allocation data in the tool-side hardware-allocation-data storage, and
• the controller comprises:
• the hardware;
• the host operating system;
• a virtual machine to be implemented on the host operating system;
• the guest operating system that runs on the virtual machine;
• a controller-side hardware-allocation-data storage;
• a controller-side allocation-condition storage configured to store therein the allocation conditions;
• a controller process unit configured to:
• receive the hardware allocation data from the engineering tool,
• after determining that the received hardware allocation data satisfies the allocation conditions stored in the controller-side allocation-condition storage, save the received hardware allocation data in the controller-side hardware-allocation-data storage, and
• after determining that the hardware allocation data fails to satisfy the allocation conditions stored in the controller-side allocation-condition storage, refrain from saving the received hardware allocation data in the controller-side hardware-allocation-data storage;
• a guest process unit configured to:
• run by the guest operating system, and
• execute control processing to an external, target device, using the hardware allocated to the guest operating system in accordance with the hardware allocation data stored in the controller-side hardware-allocation-data storage;
• and
• a host process unit configured to:
• run by the host operating system, and
• execute control processing to the target device, using the hardware allocated to the host operating system in accordance with the hardware allocation data stored in the controller-side hardware-allocation-data storage.