vHaaS — Vector Hardware as a Service
vHaaS is the shared hardware access platform for embedded software teams — book and connect to real hardware remotely, get a pre-configured virtual machine, and integrate it into your CI pipeline in minutes.
What vHaaS provides
vHaaS is a shared hardware access platform built for embedded software development. It centralises physical hardware into bookable assemblies and gives your team a consistent, high-availability environment for development, testing, and CI.
| Capability | Details |
|---|---|
| Shared hardware access | Organise hardware into organizations and groups. Share assemblies across teams — including cross-company collaboration projects. |
| Flexible hardware sourcing | Integrate and manage your own hardware, or use assemblies provisioned and maintained by Vector. |
| Virtual machines on demand | Each assembly session comes with a virtual machine pre-configured with the software you need to connect to the hardware. |
| Standardized CI integration | A built-in CLI and standardized API make plugging vHaas into GitLab CI (and other pipelines) straightforward. |
| High availability and scalability | vHaas is designed to scale with your organization — no single point of failure for your hardware workflows. |
Who is this documentation for?
This documentation is for external teams and organizations using vHaas to manage and share embedded hardware. Whether you bring your own hardware, join an organization that already uses vHaas, or use hardware provisioned and managed by Vector — this guide covers everything you need to get started and work effectively.
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Remote ECU development
Book a real target board, connect to a pre-configured VM, and start flashing and debugging from anywhere — no wiring, no shipping, no waiting.
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Automated hardware testing in CI
Use the vHaas CLI to book an assembly, run your test suite against real hardware, and release it — all inside a GitLab CI job.
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Shared HIL test bench
Register a HIL rack as a single assembly and share it across your team. Engineers book time slots and the calendar shows availability at a glance.
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Cross-company collaboration
OEMs and suppliers share a hardware assembly through a shared vHaas group — no hardware duplication, no shipping, independent access for each party.
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ECU calibration and measurement
Connect tools like CANape to a remotely hosted ECU through the vHaas VM and run XCP-based measurement and calibration sessions without physical lab access.
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Shared virtual machine environments
Share pre-configured VMs — standardized development environments, onboarding setups, or tool chain configurations — without any hardware assembly.
The problem vHaas solves
Embedded software teams share a common set of frustrations when working with physical hardware:
- Volatile hardware setups — wiring breaks, configurations drift, and setups assembled by one person are hard for others to reproduce.
- Redundant team-internal solutions — each team builds ad-hoc tooling to manage hardware access, creating inconsistency and maintenance overhead.
- CI integration gaps — running automated tests on real hardware in a pipeline requires dedicated infrastructure that most teams have to build themselves.
- Hardware blocked by individuals — a colleague on leave, working from home, or simply away from the office takes the hardware with them, blocking everyone else.
- Hardware defects and shortage — faulty or unavailable devices stall entire workflows, with no visibility into what is available and in what state.
vHaas addresses each of these by centralising hardware into a shared pool with a defined booking model, remote access, and lifecycle management handled by the platform.
Not sure where to start?
See the Use Cases page for detailed scenario guidance, or go to First Steps to book your first assembly.