Parasoft (officially Parasoft Corporation) is an

independent software vendor An independent software vendor (ISV), also known as a software publisher, is an organization specializing in making and selling software, in contrast to computer hardware, designed for mass or niche markets. This is in contrast to in-house softwa ...

specializing in automated software testing and

application security Application security (short AppSec) includes all tasks that introduce a secure software development life cycle to development teams. Its final goal is to improve security practices and, through that, to find, fix and preferably prevent security is ...

with headquarters in

Monrovia, California Monrovia is a city in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains in the San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles County, California, United States. Monrovia is the fourth-oldest General-law municipality, general-law city in Los Angeles County and the L ...

. It was founded in 1987 by four graduates of the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small group of institutes ...

who planned to commercialize the

parallel computing Parallel computing is a type of computing, computation in which many calculations or Process (computing), processes are carried out simultaneously. Large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which can then be solved at the same time. ...

software tools they had been working on for the

Caltech Cosmic Cube The Caltech Cosmic Cube was a parallel computer, developed by Charles Seitz and Geoffrey C Fox from 1981 onward. It was the first working hypercube built. It was an early attempt to capitalise on VLSI to speed up scientific calculations at a rea ...

, which was the first working hypercube computer built. 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++ Insure++ is a memory debugger computer program, used by software developers to detect various errors in programs written in C and C++. It is made by Parasoft, and is functionally similar to other memory debuggers, such as Purify, Valgrind and ...

product, they also added capabilities for

static code analysis In computer science, static program analysis (also known as static analysis or static simulation) is the analysis of computer programs performed without executing them, in contrast with dynamic program analysis, which is performed on programs duri ...

unit testing Unit testing, component or module testing, is a form of software testing by which isolated source code is tested to validate expected behavior. Unit testing describes tests that are run at the unit-level to contrast testing at the Integration ...

, and ultimately expanded to include application security,

functional testing In software development, functional testing is a form of software testing that verifies whether a system meets its functional requirements.ISO/IEC/IEEE 24765:2017, "Systems and software engineering — Vocabulary", International Organization fo ...

, and

service virtualization In software engineering, service virtualization or service virtualisation is a method to emulate the behavior of specific components in heterogeneous component-based applications such as API-driven applications, cloud-based applications and servi ...

Technologies

Parasoft develops automated defect prevention technologies that support the Automated Defect Prevention methodology developed by Adam Kolawa.Parasoft Company Profile
usinessWeek These technologies automate a number of defect prevention practices for

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

, C and C++, and

.NET The .NET platform (pronounced as "''dot net"'') is a free and open-source, managed code, managed computer software framework for Microsoft Windows, Windows, Linux, and macOS operating systems. The project is mainly developed by Microsoft emplo ...

. The

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. Since then, the original static analysis technology has been extended to include security static analysis,

data flow analysis Data-flow analysis is a technique for gathering information about the possible set of values calculated at various points in a computer program. It forms the foundation for a wide variety of compiler optimizations and program verification techn ...

, and

software metric In software engineering and development, a software metric is a standard of measure of a degree to which a software system or process possesses some property. Even if a metric is not a measurement (metrics are functions, while measurements are t ...

s. In 1996, Parasoft submitted patent applications for technology that automatically generates unit test cases. Since then, the original unit testing technology has been extended to include code coverage analysis,

regression testing Regression testing (rarely, ''non-regression testing'') is re-running functional and non-functional tests to ensure that previously developed and tested software still performs as expected after a change. If not, that would be called a '' regr ...

, and

traceability Traceability is the capability to trace something. In some cases, it is interpreted as the ability to verify the history, location, or application of an item by means of documented recorded identification. Other common definitions include the capa ...

. 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. For cloud, SOA, APIs, and enterprise IT environments, Parasoft technologies automate practices such as

API testing API testing is a type of software testing that involves testing application programming interfaces (APIs) directly and as part of integration testing to determine if they meet expectations for functionality, reliability, performance, and security.< ...

integration testing Integration testing is a form of software testing in which multiple software components, modules, or services are tested together to verify they work as expected when combined. The focus is on testing the interactions and data exchange between i ...

system testing System testing, a.k.a. end-to-end (E2E) testing, is testing conducted on a complete software system. System testing describes testing at the system level to contrast to testing at the system integration, integration or unit level. System t ...

load testing Load testing is the process of putting demand on a structure or system and measuring its response. Software load testing Physical load testing Many types of machinery, engines, structures, and motors are load tested. The load may be at a de ...

, and

penetration test A penetration test, colloquially known as a pentest, is an authorized simulated cyberattack on a computer system, performed to evaluate the security of the system; this is not to be confused with a vulnerability assessment. The test is perform ...

ing. Parasoft's service and SOA quality technology was first developed in 2002. Parasoft also develops memory error detection technology that finds run-time errors in C and C++ programs. Patents were submitted for this technology in 1995 and 1996. For

, 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. Parasoft's various technologies are used for demonstrating industry or regulatory compliance and adopting

Agile software development Agile software development is an umbrella term for approaches to software development, developing software that reflect the values and principles agreed upon by ''The Agile Alliance'', a group of 17 software practitioners, in 2001. As documented ...

DevOps DevOps is the integration and automation of the software development and information technology operations. DevOps encompasses necessary tasks of software development and can lead to shortening development time and improving the development life ...

Continuous delivery Continuous delivery (CD) is a software engineering approach in which teams produce software in short cycles, ensuring that the software can be reliably released at any time. It aims at building, testing, and releasing software with greater speed ...

Continuous testing Continuous testing is the process of executing automated tests as part of the software delivery pipeline to obtain immediate feedback on the business risks associated with a software release candidate.

, and

Test automation In software testing, test automation is the use of software separate from the software being tested to control the execution of tests and the comparison of actual outcomes with predicted outcomes. Test automation can automate some repetitive bu ...

.Don’t let Testing Stop your Agility
by Christina Cardoza, SD Times, July 28, 2016

References

{{Portal, Companies Abstract interpretation Companies based in Los Angeles County, California Companies established in 1987 Computer security software companies Development software companies Software companies based in California Software testing tools Static program analysis tools Unit testing Unit testing frameworks Software companies of the United States