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About Heartland.Data Inc.
For over forty years since their founding in 1982, Heartland.Data has provided comprehensive planning, development, and sales services for both software and hardware. Its offerings include embedded software development, IoT module development, solutions for network audio systems, and test tool series designed for software engineers.
Their signature development support tool, the DT+ series, is well-known in the industry as a dynamic testing tool that is useful for operational verification and analysis of problems, which cannot be resolved with debuggers or print statements. It has been implemented by more than 1,000 domestic and international companies and organizations as part of their embedded development and application development processes.
Heartland.Data Inc., which provides development support tools, IoT modules, and engineering services, has replaced its static analysis tool with Axivion Suite provided by Qt Group to meet its needs. By improving the usability, achieving higher returns on investments, and now being able to adapt faster to the latest standards, it has further strengthened its state-of-the-art and efficient software development environment.
Why choose Axivion?
Easy to build a static code analysis environment, greatly reducing the time for maintenance
High effectiveness and return on investment
Ability to respond to customer requirements quickly by being up to date with the latest standards
"Axivion Suite is a well-thought-out solution that you don’t want to let go of once you start using it."
Hiroki Sasaki, General Manager and Executive Director of Products & Solutions Division, Heartland.Data Inc.
The Challenge
Heartland.Data started its business with the development of production lines for semiconductor manufacturers, and later began contracted development of embedded software. In recent years, in addition to contracted software and hardware development, the company has also been involved in the planning, development, and sales of development support tools, functional safety compliance testing on behalf of customers, integrated testing method support, and technical sourcing (providing optimal technologies and functionality proposals to customers). Among the company's products, the “DT+ Series” of dynamic testing tools, which can combine and analyze various data such as execution paths, variable values, waveforms, communications, and video, and the “AUTOmeal” test automation platform for embedded development are the company's signature products that have attracted much attention in the industry.
Heartland.Data is an expert in dynamic analysis technology but also strongly recognizes the importance of static analysis, which is consistently practiced in their development processes. In June 2024, they adopted Axivion Suite as its company-wide static code analysis tool, aiming to further improve software development quality. Heartland.Data began working with static code analysis more than 10 years ago. Up until then, developers had to debug and evaluate their own code or visually review code, which was highly dependent on their knowledge, experience, and skills. Later, as the importance of static code analysis grew, developers began to perform this analysis using tools selected by their customers. However, since a different tool was specified for each project, it was a significant burden to setup each of them. Also, the performance and quality varied depending on the tool. Hiroki Sasaki, General Manager and Executive Director of Products & Solutions Division at Heartland.Data Inc, explains: “We were having a hard time setting up the static code analysis tools specified by our customers and integrating them into our development environment. This was because we could not receive support directly from the tool’s vendor. Therefore, we considered introducing our own static code analysis tool to unify them under a single solution with higher reliability and operability.”
However, the static code analysis tool that was introduced also had its problems. For example, there was a price issue. The initial contract had a fixed amount, but at some point, the usage fees began to rise, and the costs increased every year. Heartland.Data were forced to repeatedly review its budget application because the price kept rising infinitely. Mr. Sasaki also shared that he was not satisfied with the support system, which gave priority to large companies that had bought larger numbers of user licenses. "We, therefore, set up a 'Static Analysis Tool Review Committee' within the company and began to gather information on static code analysis tools that would meet our needs.”
The Solution
Mr. Sasaki, who is experienced using a variety of static code analysis tools, confirms that selecting the ideal tool is extremely difficult. Each tool has its own advantages and disadvantages, so they cannot be simply compared. Therefore, he decided on several selection criteria. The first was balance. In addition to the balance between cost and benefits, it was also important to balance the number of detections, as too many or too few would make the analysis unusable. The second requirement was that the setup at the time of introduction should not be time-consuming and labor-intensive. Third, the system needs to support a variety of compilers and IDEs, and the analysis content is versatile and highly flexible. Since contracted development requires constantly meeting various new needs, it was also necessary to be compatible with the latest standards. And fourth, even if they are not a large customer, Heartland.Data expected to receive full support in Japan with a Japanese engineer as a contact person. Axivion Suite met all these requirements.
Particularly beneficial in the selection process was the “Proof of Value (PoV) Workshop” offered to them as part of the evaluation. This program allows customers to try out Axivion Suite in their own development environments (either onsite or remote), providing the opportunity to uncover hidden issues in the real-life source code with this tool. During the workshop Qt Group's expert engineers together with Heartland.Data’s software development team, were able to determine the ROI (return on investment) of using Axivion Suite by analyzing the effectiveness of the tool in an actual software development project. Yuta Fujisawa, Application Products Section, Products & Solutions Division, Heartland.Data Inc, also participated in the PoV workshop as a member of the Static Analysis Tool Review Committee. He recalls, “We analyzed four projects, including our own product, with good results. We also needed to understand the time, difficulty, and amount of work required to implement the tool. Thanks to the PoV workshop, we were able to gain a clear understanding of the operational process. Also, the Axivion experts provided us with generous support, which deepened our trust in Qt Group.”
The Success
Keeping up to date with the latest standards to eliminate discrepancies and delays to meet requirements.
In March 2024, the adoption of Axivion Suite was formalized, and in June, static code analysis operations were started on actual products. Currently, Axivion Suite is used to perform static code analysis on all in-house developed products, and for contracted development. Heartland.Data has made it a rule to perform the analysis using Axivion Suite, except in cases where specified tool is required according to a customer's terms and conditions. Several months have passed since the start of the full-scale operation, and the following effects have already been confirmed:
- The usability has been improved. The previous static code analysis tool required an authentication server, and when installing a new version, a separate server had to be set up, and new analysis could not be performed while the analysis data was being transferred from the old to the new server. Axivion can be used securely on a terminal with a license key, and the migration of analysis data can be completed in a short time, which has dramatically reduced the time needed for setup and maintenance.
- Axivion Suite’s static code analysis is highly efficient when detecting hidden dependencies, code clones, metrics violations, style violations, dead code, circular dependencies, and run-time errors such as buffer overflows and resource leaks. This is useful and cost-effective as all issues have now been corrected, resulting in a high return on investment.
- Axivion Suite quickly catches up with the latest standards. According to Mr. Sasaki, previous static code analysis tools were slow to respond to the latest changes to languages and standards, and he was concerned about these discrepancies and delays which conflicted with customer requirements. “I feel that Axivion Suite is very speedy in responding to such changes. In fact, the latest coding standard for the C++ language, MISRA C++:2023, were implemented promptly, and the tool is updated regularly. The fact that we can always catch up with the latest technology, is very reassuring,” Mr. Sasaki said.
Leveraging Axivion Suite’s customizability to explore a setup that aligns with internal process
As for future plans for utilizing Axivion, Heartland.Data has drawn up a two-step CI workflow concept to be implemented in the DT+ series and AUTOmeal development projects. In the first phase, each developer will develop on his/her own terminal and run a static code analysis using Axivion before merging it into GitLab, their configuration management tool. The delta analysis is checked to see if there are any major issues where they have made their own changes, and if necessary, the code is modified before the merge is completed.
In the second phase, instead of developers analyzing the code locally, they will push the code to GitLab for final merging, where it will automatically be analyzed by Axivion Suite on the server side, and the results will be visualized. Mr. Fujisawa said, “Axivion Suite is highly customizable and can be used in a variety of ways, so I feel confident that we will be able to create a setup that adapts to future internal processes.”
Mr. Sasaki added, “There are still very few cases in Japan where a company of our size has introduced a static code analysis tool. This may be because it is difficult to understand the importance of investing money into a tool without experiencing its effectiveness. However, I believe that this will change in future. Axivion Suite provided by Qt Group is a well-thought-out solution that you don't want to let go once you start using it.”
The introduction of Axivion Suite by Heartland.Data, which continues to introduce advanced software development and development processes, may be a milestone for raising awareness for the importance of software quality in the industry.
Need more information?
Learn more about Axivion Suite or request a meeting with one of our experts to find out how Axivion can help you ensure the high quality of your software code.
