Coverity Offers Java Code Readiness Service
San Francisco-based Coverity recently announced the release of Coverity Software Readiness Manager (SRM) for Java, a tool to help assess code readiness. This tool is mainly geared toward managers, providing dashboard-type reporting for determining software availability and maintainability before release.
"For the first time, development managers are going to be able to predict the quality of their software as they ship it out the door," said Ben Chelf, Coverity's chief technology officer, in an interview.
The main purpose of SRM is to help developers produce clean code that meets quality assurance standards, with the aim of aligning development and business goals. The stakes are high because the risks associated with application development have grown in recent years, according to Forrester Research, in its "Best Practices in Release Management" report (Dec. 2007).
"Software has become not just employee-facing, but also partner-facing and even customer-facing," the report states. "There is far less room for error in such applications or in any of the applications with which they integrate."
SRM is designed to help with post-release failure risk assessment. It identifies, prioritizes and directs the repair of code branches that are most likely to fail. Factors such as code complexity, violation of best coding practices, architectural integrity, interdependencies and test coverage are taken into consideration.
SRM can also provide insight into code that might be acquired, open sourced, outsourced, or otherwise reused. The company's SRM solution uses technology the company acquired when it bought Solidware Technologies.
Coverity delivers its SRM solution via software-as-a-service. Pricing is determined in a tiered plan, with analysis of 500,000 lines of code priced at $8,750 per year. At the other end of the spectrum, it costs $175,000 per year to check 10 million lines of code.
