S2 Technologies Enables Innovative Early Testing and Verification with Embedded Software Verification Platform

October 24, 2006; 08:33 AM
S2 Technologies, Inc. (S2) today announced the release of the STRIDE 2.0 embedded software verification platform, with enhancements to support enterprise-wide deployments. This announcement represents a major step in revolutionizing the market for software verification for complex embedded multimedia consumer devices and wireless handsets. The STRIDE 2.0 platform provides infrastructure and tools that enable development teams to accelerate continuous integration, testing and verification of embedded software.

Until now, there has been relatively little investment and innovation in technology, processes and methodology to manage the rapidly increasing software content in embedded devices. Embedded software integration and verification continues to be challenging, time-consuming and inconsistent, often resulting in costly product delays and unpredictable software delivery. To address this problem, S2 is the first to offer an embedded verification platform that supports agile development processes and best practices while enabling development teams to more effectively validate and integrate code.

STRIDE 2.0 provides the only feasible way to deliver on early and continuous testing and integration of software as a part of integrated hardware/software solutions. By using STRIDE, developers do not have to wait until final integration and testing to identify software issues. Identifying issues early in the development cycle significantly decreases the time and expense of addressing them and performs the essential function of keeping product delivery on time and within budget.

“Companies are adding more software developers and using outsourcing and third-party software to fulfill the need for more embedded software functionality in the devices they build. However, these strategies don’t address the eventual requirement of integrating and validating all the resulting software into a high-quality product,” noted Stephen Balacco, analyst of the Embedded Software Practice at Venture Development Corporation. “Large-scale software environments will benefit from technology and infrastructure that enable more effective processes and automation for testing and integration.”

“STRIDE 2.0 is a significant advancement that supports S2’s open platform strategy for embedded software verification and integration. STRIDE enables development teams to exercise code earlier while automating testing and increasing white-box visibility,” stated Mark Underseth, S2’s founder and CEO. “More importantly, STRIDE is enabling process efficiencies and best practices in embedded software development to provide greater visibility and predictability in product deliveries. S2 now offers a solid foundation for embedded software verification and integration that will scale with growing software complexity for years to come.”

About STRIDE 2.0 Embedded Software Verification Platform
STRIDE’s unique virtual-platform approach offers developers new capabilities to quickly and easily exercise code without writing test code, effectively remove software dependencies, simulate new or missing functionality, capture internal software transactions or events, leverage scripting for automation and apply other new tools to the embedded software verification process.

STRIDE employs a unique approach of integrating with, and adapting to, the embedded software environment, either on actual target hardware, off-target simulation environments, or other virtual target platforms. This approach supports early verification with a range of testing capabilities that includes the following:

· Remote interfacing for accessing both function-call API’s and messaging interfaces
· On-target interface tracing with profiling and record-and-playback
· Dynamic interface interception to simulate or replace embedded software interfaces

STRIDE iScript enables developers to automate testing using either powerful scripting languages such as JScript, PERL, Python, and Tcl, or use C code. Tests can be engaged to run sequentially using specific inputs at different times or under different conditions. Scripting also allows test cases to be modified or added without rebuilding and enables easier management of test groups and the testing platform.

STRIDE Studio provides an integrated graphical environment and developer’s console for configuring and controlling STRIDE’s extensive testing and integration feature set. STRIDE Studio incorporates a comprehensive set of interactive development tools, facilities for test management and reporting, a built-in test recovery framework, and tracing and record-and-playback of application transactions. Developers and development teams can set up and execute testing scenarios by working entirely within the STRIDE Studio environment.

These capabilities combine to support process optimizations and best practices in the development of complex embedded software. Engineers can exercise their code during implementation without writing test code, as well as write and validate tests before coding. Dependencies on other developers or parts of the engineering process can be alleviated to enable earlier verification and more parallel development and testing. Further, engineering teams can implement automated regression or continuous integration during the entire development process.

Price & Availability
STRIDE 2.0 is immediately available with licenses starting at $8,300 USD. STRIDE 2.0 is RTOS-agnostic and readily supports most commercial embedded operating systems, including Wind River's VxWorks and Express Logic's ThreadX and Linux. For mobile handsets, STRIDE has also been integrated with REX from Qualcomm, Windows Mobile and custom environments. STRIDE 2.0 supports hosts running the Microsoft Windows operating system.

About S2 Technologies
S2 provides products and services to Optimize Integration of embedded software. Optimizing Integration addresses how development teams integrate, test and continuously verify their software throughout the development process. 

The company’s flagship product, STRIDE, an embedded software verification platform, was commercially launched in January 2003 and is already in use by a number of Fortune 500 companies. Founded in July 2000, S2 is privately held and headquartered in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California. For more information, please visit www.s2technologies.com.