IPL Extends Cantata++ 6.0 Capabilities and Delivers Expanded Wind River Platform Support for Intelligent Unit and Integration Testing

BATH, England, April 26, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- IPL http://www.ipl.com a strategic partner for Wind River http://www.windriver.com has added powerful new C unit test or C++ unit test capabilities and extends platform support to Wind River Linux 4.0 with IPL Cantata++ 6.0 -- an automated unit test and integration testing add-on tool for any C unit test or C++ unit test. This latest version of IPL Cantata++ 6.0 for Wind River Workbench is now available directly from Wind River worldwide.

The out-of-the-box deep integration between IPL Cantata++ and Wind River Workbench provides advanced high-productivity techniques, allowing developers to dynamically prove C/C++ code with intelligent unit and integration testing, in the most cost-effective manner, for VxWorks and Wind River Linux software platforms.

Notes to Editors: This release follows IPL's 1st February 2011 announcement of the launch of Cantata++ 6.0

In addition to expanded Wind River platform support, IPL Cantata++ 6.0 introduces baseline testing. Baseline testing will be of particular interest for those organisations that have a significant existing C code base without a set of regression unit tests, or where developers wish to reduce or remove their reliance on expensive manual functional level regression tests. It also provides a highly automated upgrade route for replacing unsatisfactory unit test solutions. Baseline testing may also prove a useful mechanism to automatically and easily achieve very high levels of code coverage as a supplement to requirements based testing.

With an increased focus on software safety standards, IPL Cantata++ 6.0 will also be of particular use to those C/C++ developers for whom standards compliance is a prime concern, as it can be used for on target verification against the highest Safety Integrity Levels such as IEC 61508 including all industry specific variants (SIL 4), IEC 62304 (Class C) and DO-178B (Level A), and comes with a full tool qualification / certification package that is provided free of charge.

James Thomas, IPL's Chief Technology Officer, comments, "The process of achieving and demonstrating compliance with the highest SILs of these safety standards has typically been a painful and expensive one, so a highly automated unit test and integration test with code coverage up to MC/DC level is an essential component for success. The deep integration of IPL Cantata++ in the Wind River Workbench development suite not only places these automated unit test capabilities within easy reach of every developer, but the free tool qualification package, significantly reduces the cost of tool qualification / certification."

IPL Cantata++ 6.0 for intelligent unit and integration testing is built on the Eclipse 3.5 de-facto open standard architecture, with the highest level of IDE integration. In Wind River Workbench the seamless integration means IPL Cantata++ is easily deployed by end users with Build Specs. With automatic generation of Build Targets, and use of Remote Systems connections, IPL Cantata++ provides a familiar complete C unit test or C++ unit test development environment for the creation, execution and analysis of automated unit test and integration tests on VxWorks and Wind River Linux run-times.

Thomas continues, "IPL is committed to supporting Wind River's software platforms and further capability enhancements in Cantata++. Our work with Wind River is also important for industries without stringent regulation. Device manufacturers are increasingly differentiating themselves through their application software, making quality and robustness a business-critical rather than safety-critical issue. Without the ability to dynamically prove their code with intelligent unit and integration testing, in the most cost effective manner, organisations take unacceptable business risks of potentially devastating reputation damage and massive loss of revenues from device software failure."

"The inclusion of IPL Cantata++ supports our portfolio of embedded lifecycle solutions, by providing customers with highly automated unit and integration tests for software designed for Wind River run-times. We are pleased to extend this value to the Wind River Linux 4 platform," Emeka Nwafor, senior director of product management at Wind River. "IPL Cantata++ is a powerful Workbench add-on tool that assists customers concerned with achieving the highest Safety Integrity Levels or reducing risks with business critical device software by verifying the quality and robustness of their embedded C/C++ code as it is created."

Wind River Workbench integrates the industry's most powerful development tools to monitor, analyze, debug and test at each phase of development, providing early detection of potential defects and increasing the overall quality and reliability of the product. Workbench's support for multiple operating systems, architectures, and programming languages gives companies unprecedented flexibility to standardize on a single development framework across the enterprise. 

About IPL

IPL is an IT services company specialising in the delivery of intelligent business solutions. We help our clients to exploit corporate information assets to yield tangible business benefits. Bridging the gap between business and technology, IPL provides Business Consulting, Technical Consulting, Solution Delivery and Managed Services to deliver innovative and dependable ICT solutions that address real business needs. IPL was founded in 1979 and is based in the World Heritage City of Bath, UK.

About IPL Testing Products

For more than thirty years, IPL has been developing mission critical software for some of the most demanding applications. Our practical expertise in testing high integrity software is distilled in our testing tools for any C unit test or C++ unit test.  IPL's Cantata++ and AdaTEST 95 provide advanced high productivity automated unit test facilities, allowing developers to dynamically and repeatedly prove their C/C++ and Ada code with intelligent unit and integration testing, in the most cost effective manner.  More than 960 organisations have proven their safety or business critical code with Cantata++ and AdaTEST 95 automated unit test products.  

SOURCE IPL