Analysis and Quality Assurance
The truth is in the source code
The motivators to develop an in-depth understanding of an application can be manifold. For instance you may want to break down a monolithic application into a service oriented architecture or reduce technical debts, but in each case, you first need to really get to grips with the minutiae of your application. To do that, you can chose different ways to get the information you need: from static or dynamic analysis all the way to quality assurance that takes into account norms and compliance requirements. EasiRun can explain your options and find the truth together with you.
Advantages:
Analysis and Quality Assurance: the Market Situation
Businesses have an increasing desire, and need, to adapt their applications. Relevant, new goals that are coming to the fore more and more include: encapsulating applications, the redesign of existing architecture, isolating business processes and implementing micro services. But, it can be difficult to objectively define the right criteria to achieve any of these goals, or to weigh criteria against each other and assess them properly. However, doing so is key to making informed decisions about the future of applications and software infrastructures in question. It is usually not enough to rely only on manual documentation or the views of staff.
Another factor that increases the importance of detailed application knowledge is that many businesses develop and use business-specific applications to steer critical processes. Where the development of these applications is not accompanied by well executed oversight and governance, there is a real risk that subsequent further development or maintenance of these applications is unnecessarily difficult and resource intensive. In addition, businesses increasingly draw on external support to develop their applications – which in turn makes exercising appropriate control over their development even more difficult. This can result in security issues, increasing amounts of errors in the application and unsatisfactory levels of oversight over the activities of external providers.
Analysis and Quality Assurance: the Challenges
Each of the three approaches to analysis – dynamic or static analysis and quality assurance – has their own, specific challenges. Our flexible parser, our professional software and an adaptable framework offer you off-the-shelf solutions to many technical requirements. Our EasiRun product specialists adapt these solutions as needed to your specific requirements. The greatest challenge is to properly understand the idiosyncrasies of your application and your unique characteristics and to subsequently reflect them in the existing solutions. Accordingly, our approach includes expert interviews during which we discuss and agree these specifications. In addition, it is absolutely key to get a detailed understanding of the objectives you want to achieve through the analysis to ensure that its outputs are additive for the steps that follow. In the end, the essential ingredients to success are professional tools and excellent communication.
Solution and Approach
EasiRun uses software based solutions to offer you professional project support. They enable evidence based decision making concerning your application, including around costing, resources, activity milestones, quality, maintainability, efficiency and dependencies. These decisions in turn help you achieve cost reductions, more effective use of internal and external resources, objective assessment of KPIs, software certification, security and effective controlling of service level agreements with suppliers. They also reduce the risks you face. In doing so, our solutions come in three guises that have stood the test of time.
Static analysis. An extensive static analysis and documentation produces a map of your application and its interfaces. The map depicts all options that your application draws upon. This analysis uses and examines source code and data definitions as well as other sources of evidence such as log files or selected data files, and in doing so offers high levels of flexibility and robust, in-depth analysis. It provides you with a detailed understanding of call structures, of workflows internal to the programme and of the data objects it uses.
Dynamic analysis. Dynamic analysis works on the basis of automated instrumentations of the source code and gives you a visual of the internal relationships within your application. Dynamic analysis uses this approach for diagnostic and logging purposes. Instrumentation tools uncover the actual utilisation levels of programme and data objects and programme paths. Moreover, they allow you to feed results into a static analysis as well. As a result, this approach identifies unused application parts and objects and the potential for application optimisation. Finally, dynamic analysis is the foundation of data lineage solutions.
Quality assurance. Static analysis produces outputs that enable the deployment of a comprehensive tool to assess the quality, complexity and security of business critical applications. The tool analyses business applications with reference to rules – both predefined and refined with clients – and we then produce reports and actionable recommendations on the basis of this analysis. Reductions in application weaknesses and the resulting business risks are the key objectives of this approach. Accordingly, the recommendations rely on our objective assessment of the application code’s quality. We are also able to compare different application releases to trace difference from one version to the next.
Why EasiRun
EasiRun offers software development modernisation tools throughout Europe. As an experienced analysis solutions provider, we offer professional software solutions, know-how and project expertise that benefits you. Our static and dynamic analysis solutions and quality assurance tools underpin the professionalism with which we deliver you excellent results. Our software analysis services include the provision, implementation and maintenance of our solutions and the delivery of full analysis projects. We adapt our tools to your specific requirements. You can rely on our over 40 years of successful track record for legacy applications. The truth lies in the source code and EasiRun helps you get to grips with the truth.
