OC Systems Releases Aprobe Version 5, Extends Aprobe Software Instrumentation to Embedded Devices

Fairfax, VA (June 29, 2009)—OC Systems, Inc. announced the release of Version 5 of Aprobe, the company's flagship instrumentation software. Software engineers use Aprobe to instrument software applications in the post-development environment. With Aprobe, they can rapidly isolate, diagnose and resolve complex application problems that are hard to track down with other debugging tools.

Aprobe 5 expands the platforms the software runs on to include two real-time operating systems (RTOS): embedded Linux and Wind River's VxWorks.

"Aprobe has always been a lightweight instrumentation technology," said Oliver Cole, president and CEO of OC Systems. "Its footprint was already quite small. But with this new version we have made it even smaller. Any device that runs embedded Linux or VxWorks – including mobile phones, set-top boxes, routers and networking equipment, industrial devices, and more - can now take advantage of the debugging, performance tuning, and remote diagnosis and repair capabilities in Aprobe."

Version 5 also includes two other significant enhancements:

Add and remove probes without restarting the application – Earlier versions of Aprobe allowed engineers to add, remove and modify probes while the application was running, as long as Aprobe was already in place, but the first time the application was run with Aprobe a restart was required. Now the probes can simply attach to a running application.

"So many applications must run 24/7 now," said Cole. "Our customers didn't want to have to restart an application server to add debugging capability. With Aprobe 5, that's no longer an issue."

Probe the Linux Kernel – Version 5 also allows engineers to insert probes into the Linux Kernel. The probes can be added and removed without restarting the kernel.

"In the embedded world, it is common to add code to the kernel as you are handling interrupts and performing other privileged functions," added Cole. "You need to debug that code along with all your other code. Aprobe 5 gives engineers and developers the power to resolve problems wherever they occur."

Aprobe's patented instrumentation technology incorporates unique capabilities that provide power and flexibility:

• Software engineers can instrument applications without making any modifications to the source code. There is no need to rebuild or redeploy the application, reflash boards or reboot.
• Probes can be added, removed or modified dynamically, as the application runs.
• Probes can be added to the operating system and user-mode applications.
• Probes, which are written in C or Java, can do anything that can be done in C or Java.
• Probes can be used to simulate faults and error conditions that would be difficult to reproduce in any other way.
• Probes can stub out routines or force the execution of conditional code paths.
• Probes can insert debug code, including logs and printfs, into a running system.
• Probes can insert patches, repairing software until a new build is available.
• Software developers can create a library of probes that address issues specific to a particular application.
• Data can be collected in real-time, whenever it is needed, including time-of-failure, application-specific logs, and performance metrics.
• Logging is thread-safe.

Aprobe 5 is shipping now for Linux, embedded Linux, and VxWorks. OC Systems will continue to support Aprobe 4 and earlier versions for companies that prefer to use other operating systems, including AIX, Windows, Solaris and OS/390.

About OC Systems
OC Systems, Inc. provides state-of-the-art software tools, development environments, and services that its customers use to improve the performance and operational reliability of their software applications. Customers include Lockheed Martin, IBM, Northrop Grumman, SAS, Intel, SAIC and the U.S. Army. Founded in 1983, the employee-owned company is based in Fairfax, Virginia. More information may be obtained at www.ocsystems.com.