Celebrating 10 years of BUGSENG
Today, 16 December 2020, marks exactly 10 years since we launched BUGSENG. A couple of years before that time, in the context of national and European research project, our founder and CTO Roberto Bagnara was confronted with software verification tools that were clearly badly designed and not up to the job. And they were used for the verification of safety-critical software.
He quickly came to the conclusion that his software verification research group at the University of Parma had the expertise to do much better. And, so BUGSENG was formed in collaboration with Roberto’s brother Abramo (an expert in programming and engineering of complex systems), and Dr Patricia Hill who was Senior Research Fellow at the School of Computing, University of Leeds, UK, and other colleagues.
No shortcuts, no compromises, no excuses: software verification done right has been our philosophy from the very start. And, without a doubt, the most satisfying aspect of being in this business is when customer feedback confirms we are getting this right. Don’t just take our word for it: in this blog we have included a selection of what our customers have to say.
“Competence and availability at the highest level. I have rarely found an equally remarkable combination of unquestionable and proven competence, availability and courtesy.”
— Igor Trevisan, Senior Firmware Engineer at STIGA: a well-known brand of lawn mowers and a wide range of powered garden equipment that is distributed throughout Europe and beyond
We’ve stayed true to our mission to develop market-leading MISRA compliance tools
Our business has taken many twists and turns since 2010 but the founding principles are still very much in evidence today. From the very start, our focus has been on quality and accuracy in safety critical software. Our verification tool, ECLAIR, exemplifies that approach.
“The experience of developing software using ECLAIR is totally different, if compared to the other solutions for Static Analysis. After having established a setup and process, the workflow is smooth and confidence is high. It’s like having a scientist at your desk looking after your code. You will end up cleaning and refactoring as a pro. Excellent!"
— Stefano Costa, R&D, Managing Director at Bluewind Embedded Systems: independent engineering company, providing innovative product design solutions in the fields of Electronics, Energy Efficiency, and Connected Devices
Our mission is still to bring the world's best software quality compliance tools to developers all around the world, helping them build better, more reliable systems at lower cost. Over the last 10 years, we’ve continued to expand and develop our products. With continuous improvement updates and project-specific coding flexibility, ECLAIR can now be tailored to any software verification problem and any software development process.
“The BUGSENG team has a matchless deep knowledge of safety-critical software verification. Many of the tools available on the market are quite generic; ECLAIR has been designed specifically with MISRA in mind and that makes a big difference. The reports are clear and easy to understand, and the new Jenkins plug-in is amazing. Most importantly, we know we can always count on their support and rapid turnaround times.”
— Germano Farina, Senior Software Engineer at Flex: multinational world leader in design and manufacturing of critical systems.
We know how it works on the other side of the screen and that is why our customers are never alone. BUGSENG offers online and self-help support in addition to online issue-tracking tools for case submission, monitoring and updating.
“We have worked with BUGSENG since 2017. I would like to stress we work "with BUGSENG" and not "with ECLAIR", as the technical support we get is unbelievable. The quality of the tool itself is not under discussion, as the help that the tool itself gives to improve the overall quality of our products; but a special mention has to be given to the prompt and quick support that the BUGSENG team gave us, solving any kind of issue we have. I really hope that this collaboration will go ahead for 10 additional years!!”
— Riccardo Schiavi, Project Manager at Evidence srl - Huawei Pisa Research Centre.
We’ve branched out into training and consulting
We’ve also branched out into consulting services to help industry leaders improve their development processes. For example, we carry out software audit reviews and coding standards compliance verification projects, as well as providing a range of training services to ensure customers get the most out of their technology investment.
“MTA is investing a lot of resources in training its own engineers. BUGSENG has proved to be an ideal partner to delve into the topics related to C programming with respect to the MISRA coding standards. The deep knowledge of the C language and the excellent outreach capacity of Roberto Bagnara have allowed our software engineers to clarify, in depth, issues that are often only partially understood and that could cause even serious malfunctions.”
— Nicola Morelli, Software Engineering Manager, Electronic R&D, MTA S.p.A.: leading company in the design and production of electrical and electronic components for the leading manufacturers in automotive.
In response to the unique challenges of 2020, we’ve also developed a range of detailed webinars covering the latest developments in MISRA C/C++ and BARR-C coding standards, static analysis tools, tool qualification, and compliance to industrial functional safety standards. These are all freely available on our YouTube channel.
“I appreciate what you have to say and how you have to say it a lot. I would like to hear more from your standing point. The past webinars have been very educational for our team. Thank you very much for your professionalism and scrutiny.”
— Software Quality Engineer at leading supplier of product innovations for well-known OEMs in the automotive sector.
“I've enjoyed the presentations so far. Some very interesting insights.”
— Safety System Manager at the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe.
We’d like to celebrate our 10 years with you
To celebrate BUGSENG’s 10th birthday we’d like to offer our customers a gift in the form of our new eclairit.com platform. Simply by logging into this platform you can see exactly how ECLAIR works in synergy with Jenkins, the free open-source automation server. You don’t even need to install ECLAIR on your laptop.
We’ve developed this platform with our Work it better, Make it stronger mantra very much in mind. Put simply, on eclairit.com you can see how improving your code quality can be just a few clicks away. You can reproduce exactly what you see on eclairit.com on your own integration servers. Head over to our website and request an account. eclairit.com also demonstrates the use of ECLAIR in SaaS mode: feel free to contact us for more information.
It has been a challenging year for everybody: we shall overcome
In these difficult times, we trust science, research, global cooperation, heroic health workers worldwide, and ourselves to take all possible action to stop the pandemic. For the rest, we believe everybody should stay true to their best values. For our readers, this includes designing and engineering great products that make everyone’s life better. For us, this includes standing by our customers, helping them to develop innovative software that is as safe and secure as it can possibly be.
We would like to wish all of you a safe and happy holiday season. We will be reducing our presence for our own celebrations on 24 December (urgent support requests will always be answered). We will be fully back on 11 January to continue enjoying contributing to the world of software verification and supporting the software engineering community for (at least!) another 10 years.
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Roberto Bagnara, PhD is CTO of BUGSENG, a leading provider of solutions and services for static code analysis. He is also a member of the ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG14 - C Standardization Working Group and the MISRA C Working Group.