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Whitepaper
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This whitepaper explores how to modernize embedded software development using proven enterprise DevOps practices. You’ll learn about:
Enterprise DevOps, powered by the cloud, has set a new bar for software productivity and scale.
Embedded development, by necessity, has operated differently, mastering unparalleled constraints like functional safety and real-time performance, where failure isn’t an option.
But as software becomes the key differentiator in physical products, the pressure is on. The mission is no longer just about reliability; it’s about pace.
The goal isn’t to copy enterprise models. It’s to forge a new path, building modern tools that bring scalable productivity to the unique, high-stakes world of embedded systems.
It’s time to adapt embedded software development to a modern, industrialized scale.
Enterprise computing platforms like personal computers, servers, and cloud infrastructure are optimized for general-purpose tasks. They provide maximum computational power within cost and power limits.
Conversely, embedded systems have unique constraints, leading to specialized development processes that haven’t adapted to modern methods due to some of the following barriers:
Embedded systems are deployed in a range of devices across varying applications, often custom designed for a specific, such as a medical device.
They use a wide range of processor architectures, as well as custom hardware interfaces for interacting with sensors or other systems around them. They require software tools tailored to these environments, such as special compilers, debuggers or other development tools.
Even with high levels of abstraction from underlying hardware, embedded software needs to be tested on either development or deployment systems. This requires tools and workflows that allows for cross-development; development or testing on one machine, while executing and debugging code on the custom hardware platform.
Embedded systems are often deployed in environments in which there are limits on available resources, such as space, weight, power or available memory. The art of embedded development is achieving maximum and predictable performance within these constraints.
Interacting with real-world environments often puts timing constraints on systems and their needs for responsiveness. These can include real-time behavior (a guaranteed timing response to external events), worst-case timing limits, or determinism (predictable and consistent timing behavior).
Many systems operate in environments where their failure could pose a risk to their surroundings or operators. Functional safety software is created to ensure that safety-critical embedded systems and applications work correctly, even when malfunctions occur. These systems are frequently regulated and must be developed according to industry-specific software development standards.
Custom hardware or system constraints often necessitate software languages optimized for hardware. Thus, C and C++ are common choices for embedded development, whereas higher-level languages may be unsuitable due to nondeterministic runtime behavior in areas such as memory management or complex I/O libraries.
Collectively, these constraints explain why embedded teams can’t simply lift from the cloud playbook. Every optimization must respect custom silicon, scarce resources, hard real-time deadlines, rigorous safety standards, and the low-level languages that hold it all together.
Modernization, therefore, isn’t a matter of swapping tools—it’s a balancing act that must preserve compliance while taking advantage of the automation, scale, and collaboration gains already proven in enterprise software. The remainder of this paper shows how to strike that balance, beginning with the heaviest brake on embedded development.
Testing is a critical step in the software development process, yet is often seen as a burden. It is a gating item for release of software products, though given the choice many developers would prefer to avoid it and focus instead on coding.
Developers often perceive testing as a distraction from the creative aspect of coding, yet it remains indispensable for ensuring the reliability and functionality of the final product.
Given the reluctance for testing, the process becomes a bottleneck in the software development lifecycle. The challenge lies in balancing thorough validation with tight deadlines, limited resources, and the increasing complexity of modern software systems.
Streamlining and automating testing procedures and embedding them seamlessly into development workflows is essential for alleviating this burden. These are also the steps for maintaining quality, performance, and standards conformance.
As developers adopt frameworks for baselines on advanced software, or employ higher-level languages for increased productivity, the amount of code to be tested continues to grow.
Adding GenAI to the mix compounds this growth. Research indicates that while using GenAI for code generation does not necessarily expand the code base, it appears to increase a software repository’s churn as generated code is analyzed and refactored.
These contributors to software growth also highlight that developers need to review and test code that they did not write. This further increases software complexity and reinforces the need for testing.
The adoption of these new technologies may make testing more challenging, making it more imperative to streamline our approach to it.
Adherence to software coding standards, such as MISRA, brings numerous benefits to the development of safety-critical and reliable systems. These standards establish a uniform coding framework that minimizes ambiguities and enforces best practices, significantly reducing the likelihood of programming errors. They improve code maintainability and readability, making it easier for teams to collaborate, troubleshoot, and adapt to evolving requirements.
Furthermore, compliance with such standards makes system behavior more predictable, a vital aspect in safety-critical environments, and facilitates certification processes by aligning development efforts with industry regulations.
Adhering to software functional safety standards is another foundational best practice in developing reliable and safety-critical systems. For effective and continuous conformance, teams should integrate standards compliance into their workflows from the outset, ensuring that requirements like ISO 26262, IEC 61508, or DO-178C are systematically addressed.
This involves leveraging tools for static analysis, code coverage, and requirements mapping, so teams can validate each stage of development against applicable regulations.
Collaboration between developers, testers, and quality assurance teams is essential to maintain adherence without creating unnecessary bottlenecks. Regular audits and reviews should be scheduled to verify compliance while using automated tools to streamline documentation and verification processes.
Additionally, fostering a culture of accountability and education around these standards ensures all team members understand their importance, reducing errors and simplifying certification efforts.
In the ever-evolving landscape of software development, modern methodologies such as DevOps and continuous deployment are reshaping how teams build, test, and release applications. You will do best with a comprehensive suite of tools and technologies that equip developers to meet the demands of modern development practices.
By addressing challenges in both embedded and functional software, providing robust tool integrations, and enhancing developer productivity, your team can focus on innovation and reduce risk while maintaining high standards of quality, performance and conformance to standards.
The most viable companies can provide tailored solutions that cater to the diverse needs of embedded and functional software development. In the realm of embedded systems, where safety-critical and real-time performance are paramount, it’s best to use tools that ensure rigorous testing and compliance with industry standards such as MISRA, ISO 26262, and DO-178C.
These solutions help developers achieve high levels of reliability by embedding testing and validation workflows seamlessly into their development processes.
For functional software applications, you’ll need advanced test automation capabilities that accelerate development cycles and improve software quality. Look for platforms that support API testing, service virtualization, and test data management—components that help your team identify defects early in the lifecycle and reduce costly rework.
By addressing the unique requirements of both embedded and enterprise-level applications, you can bridge the gap between artisanal approaches and production-scale methodologies.
As software systems grow increasingly intricate, developers must remain actively engaged in reviewing and managing build pipelines. This involvement is crucial to ensure that insights generated by automated tools, such as static analysis, are appropriately triaged and acted upon.
With the rising volume of code content and the complexity of interdependent systems, the sheer number of warnings, errors, and recommendations produced during builds can quickly overwhelm developers.
Without their oversight, critical issues may be overlooked, potentially compromising software reliability and security. Developers bring the keen analytical skills and domain-specific understanding needed to discern which actions should be prioritized, ensuring the pipeline delivers meaningful results while maintaining efficiency.
Artificial intelligence offers a transformative way to address the burdens associated with managing increasingly complex codebases and build pipelines.
By leveraging historical data and predictive algorithms, AI can intelligently streamline the process, identifying risk-prone areas and automating the prioritization of tasks. Rather than sifting through an avalanche of redundant or inconsequential recommendations, developers can focus on actionable insights that drive measurable improvements.
AI-powered tools enhance collaboration between developers and automated systems, enabling build pipelines to scale effectively while preserving the critical human element that ensures the results are aligned with organizational goals and standards. These advances are already built into Parasoft’s tool workflows, and is a continued area of focus for ongoing investment.
Parasoft, a leader in automated testing and software quality solutions, approaches modern software development methodologies to help developers in several key ways:
Parasoft’s ecosystem of tools integrates seamlessly into modern development environments, enabling developers to leverage their existing workflows while enhancing efficiency.
Key integrations include:
Parasoft’s ability to address both embedded and enterprise applications provides organizations with a unified approach to software quality.
By combining the meticulous attention to detail required for embedded systems with the scalability and agility of enterprise solutions, Parasoft equips teams to thrive in diverse development environments. Whether the goal is to build safety-critical systems or rapidly iterate on mission-critical enterprise applications, Parasoft’s tools offer the flexibility and support needed to succeed.
As software development methodologies continue to evolve, the need for adaptable, efficient, and robust tools has never been greater. Parasoft’s comprehensive suite of solutions enables teams to embrace modern practices such as DevOps while addressing the complexities of embedded and functional software development.
Through seamless tool integrations, AI-powered insights, and a commitment to quality, Parasoft not only enhances developer productivity but also ensures that organizations can deliver reliable and innovative software in today’s fast-paced environment.
Because Parasoft has followed a developer-focused philosophy that has helped support embedded developers for over 35 years—which included traditional IDE-based workflows—it was quick to recognize the required shift to DevOps. This led to it investing and expanding its product portfolio to satisfy the needs of both approaches. This provides developers with choices over the migration from traditional to modern workflows.
With a portfolio that spans embedded and functional software, you can bridge best practices from each domain to the other. We believe this will become increasingly important as applications and devices become ever more connected and dependent on each other.
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