Undo is a highly innovative software start up allowing software developers to gain unique insights into their application behavior and debug issues quickly that would otherwise be impossible. This project will allow record and replay technology to be applied to parallel programs solving one of the major technical challenges in modern software development.

According to Cambridge University research, developers spend 50% of their development time debugging, representing significant cost to the industry and to the economy as a whole. Undo Software, leading supplier of software quality tools for Linux and Android, is currently developing a new technology to assist in the diagnosis and fixing of Linux software failures: the Undo Flight Recorder (UFR). Software is written by developers working for a software vendor, and consumed by an end user. Buggy software creates significant costs to the software vendor and represents even greater costs to the end user. To analyse an end user reported software failure, developers must either reproduce the error on their computer or, if that fails, travel to the end user site to reproduce the issue there. Both options are time consuming and expensive, and there is always the risk that the issue cannot be reproduced. The UFR is an error-reporting system that resolves this issue by removing the need to reproduce bugs. Once embedded into the software vendor’s program, UFR enables the program to record itself. The resulting recording contains an instruction-level recording of the defective code’s execution, i.e. everything the buggy program did. Developers can then load the UFR recording onto their own machine to find and fix the bug; saving time and money, and preserving company reputation. Undo believes the UFR has huge market potential as any vertical which writes C/C++ on Linux and Android could use the UFR. These include: embedded, automotive, telecommunications, web and enterprise, amongst others. However, Undo only has visibility into one market: Electronic Design Automation (EDA), as its current product is being sold into this vertical. The PoM grant will be used to understand the product and market requirements of different markets, to rank the markets in order of attractiveness and to understand the compelling ‘value proposition’ the UFR brings to each vertical.

this is a proposal for the development of a new technology to assist in the diagnosis and fixing of Linux software failures (i.e. bugs): the Undo Flight Recorder (UFR). Software is written by developers working for a Software Vendor, and consumed by an End User. End users may also work for the software vendor (e.g. in-house developers, testing departments), although more usually for another organisation. When software contains bugs, the end user will suffer crashes and/or a decrease in their applications’ performance. Buggy software creates significant costs to the vendor and represents even greater costs to the end user. It is the software vendor’s responsibility to fix bugs reported by end users. To analyse an end user reported software failure, developers must (1) reproduce in-house, or (2) gain remote access to the end user’s computer, or (3) travel to the end user’s site, or (4) use an error-reporting scheme to gather sufficient information. Error-reporting schemes are desirable as 1-3 are usually expensive and time-consuming and often impossible. However, existing error-reporting schemes tend to contain at best a snapshot of the program state at the time of the failure, with very limited information about what led up to the failure. UFR is an error-reporting scheme significantly better than anything currently in use. It removes the need to reproduce software failures. Once embedded into the software vendor’s program, UFR enables the program to record itself. The resulting recording contains everything the buggy program did and can be loaded into the developer’s computer for analysis. Furthermore, the Linux debugging tools market is under-developed when compared to tools available for other operating systems such as Windows.