Parasoft

Parasoft
Private
Industry Computer software, Software testing
Founded 1987 (1987) in Pasadena, CA
Founders Adam Kolawa
Jon Flower
Marc Goroff
Headquarters Monrovia, CA
Number of locations
 9
Area served
 Worldwide
Key people
 Elizabeth Kolawa, CEO
Igor Kirilenko, VP Development
Mark Lambert, VP Products
Products
Website www.parasoft.com

Parasoft (officially Parasoft Corporation) is an independent software vendor specializing in automated software testing and application security with headquarters in Monrovia, California. It was founded in 1987 by four graduates of the California Institute of Technology[1] who planned to commercialize the parallel computing software tools they had been working on for the Caltech Cosmic Cube,[2][3] which was the first working hypercube computer built.[4]

During the 90's Parasoft leveraged technology in their parallel software toolkit to create software test automation tools for traditional software development as well as parallel. Starting with runtime error detection for C and C++ with their Insure++ product, they also added capabilities for static code analysis, unit testing, and ultimately expanded to include application security, functional testing, and service virtualization.

Technologies

Parasoft develops automated defect prevention technologies that support the Automated Defect Prevention methodology developed by Adam Kolawa.[5] These technologies automate a number of defect prevention practices for Java, C and C++, and .NET. The static code analysis practice identifies coding issues that lead to security, reliability, performance, and maintainability issues later on. In 1996, Parasoft submitted a patent application for their rule-based static code analysis.[6] Since then, the original static analysis technology has been extended to include security static analysis, data flow analysis, and software metrics.[7][8] In 1996, Parasoft submitted patent applications for technology that automatically generates unit test cases.[9] Since then, the original unit testing technology has been extended to include code coverage analysis, regression testing, and traceability.[5] The peer code review practice involves manually inspecting source code to examine algorithms, review design, and search for subtle errors that automated tools cannot detect. Although the peer inspection itself cannot be automated, peer code reviews preparation, notification, and tracking can be automated.[10]

For cloud, SOA, APIs, and enterprise IT environments, Parasoft technologies automate practices such as API testing, integration testing, system testing, load testing, and penetration testing.[11] Parasoft's service and SOA quality technology was first developed in 2002.[12]

Parasoft also develops memory error detection technology that finds run-time errors in C and C++ programs.[13] Patents were submitted for this technology in 1995 and 1996.[14][15]

For service virtualization, Parasoft technologies are used to automatically capture and emulate dependent system behavior of mainframes, third-party components, or any system component that is unavailable or difficult to access for development and testing purposes.[16][17][18][19]

Parasoft's various technologies are used for demonstrating industry or regulatory compliance and adopting Agile software development, DevOps, Continuous delivery, Continuous testing, and Test automation.[20] Parasoft joined the Eclipse Consortium board of stewards in 2002.[21][22]

Several analyst reports and software industry publications mentioned the company's [23][24] service virtualization technology[25] and embedded system software development tools.[26]

Products

Parasoft C/C++test

Parasoft C/C++test is a comprehensive software testing tool that contains functionality to test and find software defects. It includes static code analysis functionality with over 2,000 rules to support major standards for safety-critical software and security such as MISRA, JSF, UL-2900, CWE, and CERT. It also has functionality for software metrics, unit test generation and execution as well as code coverage analysis. C/C++test integrates with Parasoft DTP to provide full reporting and analytics needed for software development, especially for embedded safety-critical systems and devices.

Parasoft Jtest

Parasoft Jtest is a static analysis and unit testing tool for Java that Parasoft started shipping in 1997. Since then, Jtest has won numerous awards including multiple Jolt awards from Dr. Dobbs Journal, as well as multiple Codies. Jtest has over 1100 coding rules that support major standards such as OWASP Top 10, CWE, JSF, PCI-DSS, and UL-2900.

Jtest works as a standalone product via an Eclipse or Visual Studio plugin. It can also work as a command line tool and through a lightweight engine that can be used in CI systems such as Jenkins for continuous testing. Jtest integrates with Parasoft DTP for full reporting and analytics including industry specific reports such as OWASP and CWE.

Jtest has a unit test assistant called UTA that helps create unit tests including support for mocks and stubs. It also integrates with running applications to help create meaningful tests and has advice on expanding and improving existing tests.

Parasoft dotTEST

Parasoft dotTEST is a set of tools for testing .NET applications and works as a plugin to Visual Studio. It supports development testing practices such as static code analysis, unit test creation [27] and execution, code coverage, and software metrics. Configurations for coding standards like CWE, OWASP, and UL-2900 are available.

dotTEST can be connected to Parasoft DTP to provide full traceability and assist in compliance related software industry such as FDA medical devices where you need to be able to prove what practices and testing you have performed as part of an audit.

Parasoft Insure++

Parasoft Insure++ is an automated runtime debugger and memory error detection tool that Parasoft began selling in 1993. Insure++ is often used to find common memory problems in C and C++ programs such as memory leaks, memory underruns and overflows, and numeric overflows. It performs dynamic analysis using source code instrumentation which allows it to catch many other kinds of errors, including static and heap errors as well.

Parasoft SOAtest

Parasoft SOAtest is an automated API testing tool that allows developers and testers to also perform functional testing, end-to-end testing, security testing, and load and performance testing. It supports over 100 common protocols such as Web services, REST, JSON, MQ, JMS, TIBCO, HTTP, XML, and EDI.

Tests can be created either programmatically or graphically, allowing testers and developers to both create and share tests. SOAtest has functionality for intelligent stubs and also integrates with Parasoft Virtualize for full API and protocol simulation through service virtualization that help shift testing earlier in the development process.

SOAtest Integrates with the Parasoft Continuous Testing Platform to allow users to create, manage, and execute test cases via a browser as well as providing reports and analytics.

Parasoft Virtualize

Parasoft Virtualize is a service virtualization tool, sometimes also called API simulation, that provides users with the ability to create, deploy, and manage simulated test environments, as well as simplify test data management. This is primarily to facilitate testing earlier, as well as improve access to systems that may have scheduling constraints or be too expensive to maintain dedicated versions of. It integrates with Parasoft SOAtest to provide full end-to-end testing capabilities.

Virtualize integrates with the Parasoft Continuous Testing Platform which allows users to create, manage, and deploy virtual test assets and environments through a web interface as well as integrated them with their continuous integration system.

Parasoft DTP

Parasoft DTP is a hub for development testing that was released in 2003 under the name Parasoft Concerto. In 2012 DTP won the "Best of Show" Embeddy award from VDC Research.[28] DTP collects data from various software development activities such as testing, static analysis, code coverage, and metrics as well as integrating with other SDLC systems such as bug-tracking, peer review, and requirements.

The data collected is used to create detailed reports on software quality as well as compliance with a variety of industry standards like FDA, MISRA, DO-178b/c. It also supports security standards such as CERT, OWASP, and CWE. The security reports include data from the standard risk frameworks like the “Common Weakness Risk Analysis Framework” from CWE that help measure the so-called technical impact of a finding. This means that instead of simply reporting a software defect like a buffer overflow, the data include information about what kinds of security problems can occur from an overflow, such as exposure of private data or DDoS. This information helps developers and security testers prioritize which findings are most important.

In addition to reporting and dashboards, DTP has an analytics engine called “Process Intelligence Engine” or “PIE”. Users can take advantage of pre-build analytics modules for tasks like change-based testing. They can also use a graphical tool in the web interface to create their own analytics.

Awards and recognition

Parasoft SOAtest was recognized as a leader by Forrester in the 2018 Forrester Wave Omnichannel Functional Test Tools. The reported said "Parasoft shined in our evaluation specifically around effective test maintenance, strong CI/CD and application lifecycle management (ALM) platform integration". [29]

Parasoft received a "Best in Show" in software development award in the testing category from SD Times in 2018 as part of the SD Times 100 list.[30]

Global structure

Headquarters and Americas

Parasoft headquarters building in Monrovia, CA

Parasoft is a global provider of software test automation tools and analytics with its global headquarters in the Monrovia, California. The headquarters building is at the heart of the Monrovia High Tech Corridor and is home to marketing, development, sales, solution architects, technical support, and professional services.


Parasoft has distributors in Canada and Latin America to provide local sales and technical support.

EMEA

Parasoft has a strong presence in EMEA which centers around offices in Krakow, Poland and The Hague, Netherlands. Krakow has a full range of capabilities from development to technical support, professional services, sales, and solution architects in a variety of languages. The Hague has staff for marketing, sales, solution architects, professional services and technical support.

Parasoft has subsidiaries in Berlin, Germany, London, UK, and Stockholm, Sweden, with distributors in France, Italy, Israel, and South Africa.

APAC

From early in its corporate history, Parasoft has had strong ties in Asia. In Shanghai, China Parasoft has a subsidiary with full staff for marketing, sales, solution architects, professional services, and technical support. Parasoft also has subsidiaries with sales staff, solution architects, professional services, and technical support in Bangalore, India and Singapore.

TechMatrix is a distributor for Parasoft in Japan and the two companies have a relationship going back over more than two decades. Parasoft also has distributors in South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand.

References

  1. ↑ "Interview: Adam Kolawa, Parasoft" in socaltech.com, February 9, 2004
  2. ↑ "An Experimental Assessment of Express Parallel Programming Environment". CiteSeerX 10.1.1.113.8007.
  3. ↑ History of Supercomputing
  4. ↑ Anderson, A. John (1994). Foundations of Computer Technology. CRC Press. p. 378. ISBN 978-0412598104.
  5. 1 2 "Parasoft Company Profile" in BusinessWeek
  6. ↑ "Method and system for automatically checking computer source code quality based on rules" at www.uspto.gov
  7. ↑ "Jtest continues its trek toward code-testing supremacy Archived 2009-02-13 at the Wayback Machine. product review in InfoWorld, October 6, 2006
  8. ↑ "Jtest promotes good Java hygiene" product review in JavaWorld, December 19, 2003
  9. ↑ "Method and system for generating a computer program test suite using dynamic symbolic execution " at www.uspto.gov
  10. ↑ "Parasoft C++test developer toolkit integrated into IDEs" at SearchSoftwareQuality.com, April 3, 2007
  11. ↑ "Clean up your SOAP-based Web services" product review in InfoWorld, November 26, 2007
  12. ↑ "System and method for testing of web services" at www.uspto.gov
  13. ↑ "Survey of Systems for Detecting Serial Run-Time Errors" by Iowa State University's High Performance Computing Group, February 22, 2006
  14. ↑ "Method using a computer for automatically instrumenting a computer program for dynamic debugging " at www.uspto.gov
  15. ↑ "Method and system for dynamically detecting leaked memory space in a computer program" at www.uspto.gov
  16. ↑ Parasoft Delivers Virtualize Platform by Darryl K. Taft, eWeek, June 2011
  17. ↑ Parasoft Aims to Ease App Testing Constraints by Adrian Bridgwater, Dr. Dobb's Journal, June 2011
  18. ↑ Parasoft Sends In Software "Liberation" Troops by Adrian Bridgwater, Dr. Dobb's Journal, February 2011
  19. ↑ Parasoft creates test environment for transactions by Victoria Reitano, SD Times, February 2011
  20. ↑ "Don’t let Testing Stop your Agility" by Christina Cardoza, SD Times, July 28, 2016
  21. ↑ Eclipse Board minutes December 2002
  22. ↑ Parasoft Joins Eclipse
  23. ↑ The Forrester Wave™: Modern Application Functional Test Automation Tools, Q2 2015
  24. ↑ Market Mover Array Report: Lifecycle Virtualization
  25. ↑ Jolt Award: Parasoft Virtualize in Dr. Dobb's Journal
  26. ↑ Announcing the winner of VDC’s Software Embeddy for the 2012 DESIGN East show! in VDC Research Analysts Blog
  27. ↑ ""Parsoft .TEST". Retrieved 15 March 2018.
  28. ↑ "Announcing the winner of VDC's Software Embeddy for the 2012 DESIGN East show". 19 September 2012. Retrieved 15 Mar 2018.
  29. ↑ "The Forrester Wave: Omnichannel Functional Test Automation Tools, Q3 2018". Retrieved July 31, 2018.
  30. ↑ "The 2018SD Times 100 Best in Show in Software Development". Retrieved July 31, 2018.
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