News

Borland Ships Gauntlet Automatic Test Tool

• By Stuart J Johnston
• January 31, 2007

Borland Software announced this week it is shipping its Gauntlet automated build and test software, adding another piece to its lifecycle quality management, or LQM, tools offering.

Gauntlet provides the ability to continuously test code as developers check it in. Its technology is designed to detect potential problems before they have a chance to impact other developers by automatically pre-screening all new code against a set of quality guidelines before it enters the build process, according to company statements.

The package institutes quality controls within existing version control processes. These controls, called “gauntlets,” enable development teams to identify and isolate problems earlier in the application lifecycle – when their impact can be minimized – by automatically inspecting development “artifacts” every time a change is made or at desired intervals.

Gauntlet’s “dashboards” include real-time snapshots and time series analysis of metrics like build performance, unit or functional test results, code coverage and project activity.

By making it possible for customers to view and measure application health earlier in the lifecycle, Gauntlet aims to help development teams gain greater confidence and accountability in their estimates, technical predictions and risk assessments, while at the same time enabling management to identify at-risk projects early enough in the lifecycle to institute changes in scope or resources.

Additionally, Gauntlet is a component of Borland’s LQM solution, which combines versions of the Silk application lifecycle management products that Borland acquired when it bought out Segue Software in April, with the Gauntlet continuous build and test product it acquired in March with the acquisition of Gauntlet Systems, and with its Caliber requirements management tools.

Not so much a bundle as an ala carte menu of integrated products as well as services and consulting, the idea is to let development teams more closely track user requirements through the entire process including quality assurance (QA).

Gauntlet also integrates with leading configuration management products – including Borland StarTeam, CVS and Subversion.

In addition, Gauntlet supports a growing number of third-party and open source integrations that enable customers to test for a broad range of potential defects – from code complexity and readability to security vulnerabilities or license compliance, the company said. Gauntlet also lets customers add or create their own custom gauntlets, all of which feed metrics into centralized Gauntlet dashboards.

Among the open source integrations for Gauntlet that are currently available or under development, are Ant, CheckStyle, Emma, Findbugs, JUnit, NUnit and PMD. Commercial tools integrations meanwhile include Cenzic Hailstorm for Web application vulnerability assessment, Fortify SCA for source code security analysis, Klocwork K7 for automated software detect and prevention, Lint4J for static Java source code analysis, and Palamida IP Amplifier for software intellectual property compliance scanning and auditing.