• Short-link
• Link
• Embed

newsflashcontentsan AdaCore PublicationSpring 2009www.adacore.comContract Award from BAE Systems UKBAE Systems UK has signed a corporatewide,unlimited-usage licensing agreementwith AdaCore, providing every BAE Systemsdeveloper in the UK with access toAdaCore’s GNAT Pro Ada developmentenvironment. This contract potentiallyapplies to all Ada projects at BAE SystemsUK facilities. Existing projects can freelymigrate to GNAT Pro, and new Ada projectscan select GNAT Pro, with no additionalcosts to BAE Systems UK.OPEES Project ParticipationAdaCore has joined the European-fundedOPEES (Open Platform for the Engineeringof Embedded Systems) project. OPEES’smission is to foster innovative engineeringtechnologies for dependable / criticalsoftware-intensive embedded systems, andto ensure that these technologies areavailable and viable over the long term. Toachieve this goal, the OPEES partners arebuilding an Open Source ecosystem basedon relevant business models. AdaCorebrings to this project its experience indeveloping Freely Licensed Open Sourceembedded systems toolsets.SPARK Pro LaunchedOpen-DO InitiativeCurrent ReleasesIn the PipelineAcademia Corner: Vermont Technical CollegeInterview with Michaël FriessWebinar ScheduleAda Gem: Pragma No_ReturnConferences/Events112223344insiderSPARK Pro LaunchedSPARK Pro, an Integrated DevelopmentEnvironment combining AdaCore’s GNATProgramming Studio with Praxis High IntegritySystems’ SPARK language tools, is now availablefrom AdaCore. Targeted especially for highassuranceapplications, SPARK Pro can be usedwith AdaCore’s GNAT Pro toolsuite to provide acomplete development environment for systemsthat must be reliable, safe, and secure. A laterrelease of SPARK Pro is planned to includesupport for AdaCore’s GNATbench IDE.Designed by Praxis, SPARK is an Ada subsetextended with a contract language that allows aprogram’s specification to be precisely expressedand verified. The SPARK tools perform staticverification that combines soundness, low falsealarmrate, depth of analysis, and efficiency. TheSPARK tools also generate evidence forcorrectness that can be used to build aconstructive assurance case meeting theOpen-DO Initiativerequirements of industry regulators andcertification schemes. All SPARK features are partof standard Ada—either Ada 83, Ada 95, or Ada2005.SPARK Pro is available worldwide from AdaCore,with support delivered by both companies usingAdaCore’s web-based GNAT Tracker supportsystem. Current SPARK users have the option totransition to the new environment, which is alsoavailable as a standalone product. The launch ofSPARK Pro is the first available product followingthe technical and marketing partnershipannounced last year between Praxis andAdaCore.Praxis and AdaCore have worked togetherpreviously on high-assurance systems. Oneexample is the Tokeneer project implemented byPraxis for the US National Security Agency (NSA)using the SPARK language and toolset andAdaCore’s GNAT technology.Collaborative Framework for Developing Certifiable SoftwareAdaCore has launched a new initiative for the High-Assurance community, with the goal of producinga cooperative and open framework to reduce the effort in developing certifiable software. Its name,“Open-DO”, reflects one of the intended application domains: safety-critical systems requiringcertification against the highest levels of the DO-178B avionics safety standard.Open-DO was established to exploit two of the most promising trends that have been taking hold insoftware engineering:Effective collaboration through Open Source communities, andInnovative methodologies such as Agile, Lean and eXtreme programming.Its mission is to demonstrate that these techniques are practical for developing software that needsto meet high-assurance certfication standards.Open-DO aims to reduce certification costs by making available a number of Freely Licensed OpenSource Software (FLOSS) tools, by providing a framework in which these tools can be integrated, andby addressing a number of workflow support issues.Key to the success of the Open-DO initiative is wide participation from a variety of communitiesincluding FLOSS developers, safety-critical programmers, tool providers, avionics industry leaders,researchers and professors from academia, and certification authorities.Potential topics of interest include:Open verification tools with qualification materialOpen qualification material for closed verification toolsOpen development tools with qualification / certification materialOpen life-cycle management toolsOpen certifiable components (with certification material)Open educational material on the certification process and standard evolutionTo learn more, please visit www.open-do.org or contact info@open-do.org.Spring 2009 GNAT Pro insider 1