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Agitar Introduces AgitarOne(tm), a Comprehensive Integrated Unit Testing Solution for Java

Announcement posted by Agitar Software 18 Nov 2006

Agitar Software, a leader in enterprise developer testing, today announced a new flagship product – AgitarOne – that brings power and simplicity to Java unit testing. Unit testing is the practice in which software developers create tests for their code as they write it, helping to ensure that the code works correctly and making it easier to change the code with confidence.
What’s new about AgitarOne:
·         Introduces powerful support for automated JUnit test generation, powered by Software Agitation - Agitar’s award-winning innovation for exhaustive unit testing
·         Helps developers automate the creation of regression test suites for legacy Java code bases
·         Delivers new functionality for interactive unit testing that helps novices test code like experts
·         Introduces server-based deployment that gives developers meaningful unit tests in minutes
·         Features out-of-the-box support for continuous integration and testing using CruiseControl, the most widely-used open-source software for this purpose 
“AgitarOne answers requests from hundreds of customers for an easier way to start unit testing or to extend what they’re already doing using hand-written tests. It has been hard for some organisations to start unit testing and to stick with it because of the manual effort, and because there was no easy way to add JUnit tests to legacy code to start to change it safely,” said Jerry Rudisin, CEO and President, Agitar. “AgitarOne removes the obstacles and excuses. It empowers development teams to start creating meaningful tests in minutes and to slash the work required to create a “safety net” of unit tests around legacy applications, making them easier to enhance. AgitarOne delivers effective and exhaustive unit testing without exhausted developers.”
With AgitarOne, companies can see dramatic changes in how easy it is to get started with unit testing and how quickly their development teams can realise the benefits: more predictable software development cycles, and reduction in the cost of quality assurance and maintenance through early elimination of bugs.
“In the Data Center Management group at Cisco, we estimate that maintaining products can add up to 40 per cent to our engineering estimates. That’s why we believe in building quality in, through unit testing, “said Ian Wallis, Director of Data Center Management Software. “Agitar’s unit testing solutions and expertise have helped our globally distributed development teams adopt agile practices with great success. With AgitarOne, we have the fastest, most effective way to get our current product thoroughly tested, and ensure our code is robust, flexible and of the highest quality.”
AgitarOne’s most striking new feature is the automated generation of JUnit tests. AgitarOne enables developers to unit test much more thoroughly than they would be able to with purely hand-written tests. Developers also use AgitarOne to generate a change-detection “safety net” for legacy applications, to ensure that any change to the code does not accidentally change the code’s intended behaviour.
"I learn surprising facts about my code when I look at the JUnit tests that AgitarOne generates, and when I agitate my code. AgitarOne's test generation provides developers a quick way to get a useful set of unit tests that will detect unintended changes to the code, " said Kent Beck, co-author of JUnit, the most widely used unit testing framework for Java, and the father of eXtreme Programming. "By integrating these features with the Management Dashboard, the whole team--including its sponsors, customers, and managers--can readily see the current state of unit testing during development."
AgitarOne is a server-based software product with capabilities including:
·         Agitar’s breakthrough technology, software agitation, with the full functionality offered in Agitator(R). Agitation supports interactive exploratory testing on Java code to help developers find unexpected behaviour.
·         Powerful technology for automated generation of JUnit tests, providing thorough coverage on most code. Developers can interactively tune and improve the JUnit test generation by writing helper methods in Java.
·         Flexible and extensible code-rule enforcement that helps eliminate error-prone coding patterns.
·         Out-of-the-box support for continuous integrated testing, based on the popular open-source CruiseControl, so every development team member can know in minutes when a coding change introduces possible bugs.
·         A comprehensive project Dashboard that gives continuous visibility into how a project is doing against unit-level quality targets.
·         Server-based deployment that makes deployment faster and that simplifies Dashboard rollups and sharing of assets across organisations. 
·         Distributed JUnit test generation and agitation, allowing users to exploit additional CPU power to do more aggressive and frequent testing in less elapsed time.
“Effective, iterative unit testing catches problems at the earliest phases for development  to improve quality and speed deployment, yet manual approaches and inconsistent processes have hampered unit testing for Java and other environments," said Melinda Ballou, program director at IDC, a research and advisory service company headquartered in Framingham, Mass. "In addition, many legacy Java applications lack up-front testing, which obstructs software creation as developers hesitate to change, extend or re-factor these existing, possibly fragile applications, causing delays and cost overruns. Developers need suites of tests for legacy and new code that incorporate analysis, automate unit testing and provide regression tests to support aggressive, iterative approaches that improve quality, can help to cut costs and bring new software to market faster."
Pricing and Availability
AgitarOne is licensed through an annual subscription fee for use on a specified number of unique Java classes. Entry-level pricing starts at $50,000 per year (US dollars).
In a companion release today, “Agitar Software Announces 'No Java Class Left Behind' Program – AgitarOne(tm) Now Free For Educational Institutions” Agitar announced that the full AgitarOne product is available free of charge to accredited educational institutions for education and research.
AgitarOne, version 4.0, is available immediately, and supports the following platforms: Windows XP or 2000; Linux with kernel 2.4.22 or later It also fully supports J2EE and Java extensions JDBC, JNDI and Java Servlet Technology. AgitarOne is compatible with any Java IDE (integrated development environment) based on Eclipse 3.0, 3.1, or 3.2.
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About Agitar Software
Agitar Software removes the obstacles to widespread adoption of unit testing. This practice, where software developers test their code as they write it, improves software quality and business agility. Agitar’s flagship product, AgitarOne, helps Java development teams start unit testing and makes good unit testing more effective, on both new code and legacy Java systems. Customers have shortened development cycles, cut defects handed over to system integration by 90 percent, and reduced the cost of fixing bugs after release by up to 90 percent. Agitar’s breakthrough technology, software agitation, has been honoured with the Java One Duke’s Choice, Jolt Award, Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award, and InfoWorld Technology of the Year. Thousands of users at organisations such as Bank of America, Cisco, EDS, IBM Global Services, Northrop-Grumman, NTT Data, Siemens Medical, Tata Consultancy Services, and Tokyo Gas use Agitar’s products to improve in-house, offshore, or outsourced software development. Agitar is a privately-held company headquartered in Mountain View, CA. For more information visit www.agitar.com.