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„After we had lost sight of our goal,
we redoubled our efforts." (Mark Twain)
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 Newsletter in April 2024
- Tools like 20 years ago
- Elevator Pitch - Can’t see the wood for the trees - The right Licensing
- Percepio’s new CEO: Andreas Lifvendahl
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Dear Customer,
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Software is everywhere today, including in operational technology that monitors and controls the performance of physical products. Small, cheap and powerful embedded computers have enabled many innovative applications and paved the way for the IoT.
Embedded software development employs hundreds of thousands of software engineers worldwide; it is a difficult task that requires a lot of time for testing and debugging. Despite all efforts, software bugs are still common in delivered products and development projects are often delayed as a result.
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Tools like 20 years ago This is partly due to the fact that the programming languages and tools used today are conceptually the same as they were 20 years ago, while software applications have become far more complex. A great help for developers is visual trace diagnostics, which makes it possible to detect and analyze software anomalies during development and in the devices used.
With the 4.8 release of Tracealyzer, Percepio has released another significant update for this visual trace diagnostics tool.
If the number of test downloads and evaluations of the latest version is a measure of developer interest, then it is clear that this tool has had a very successful start.
With the current version of Tracealyzer, developers can find a suitable runtime analysis solution for almost every RTOS used in the industry.
Once you are convinced of the tool and want to buy it, the next hurdle that needs to be overcome in the company is a major step: to obtain approval and release for the purchase, a (usually non-technical) superior must be convinced of the value of the desired tool at a glance.
But how do I go about it?
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Elevator Pitch
The Americans have a vivid name for precisely this task: Elevator Pitch. In other words: How do I get my message across (convincingly!) in the short amount of time I have to ride in the elevator with my boss?
With the Tracealyzer, this is quite simple.
An electronics/software engineer in our country costs - including wages, taxes, social security contributions and infrastructure costs - about €200 per hour. (You will know the exact value in your company).
Divide the purchase price of a license by the number of engineering hours saved and you will see how quickly the Tracealyzer pays for itself.
The node-locked license costs € 1,995, divided by € 200 per hour, gives the amazingly low value of 9.9 hours (let's say around 10 hours for simplicity's sake). So if an engineer saves 10 hours over the lifetime of the tool, it has already paid for itself.
When we then receive comments from customers like this...
"Tracealyzer has doubled our development speed. Problems that would otherwise take days to solve are solved very obviously and quickly with this tool. We use Tracealyzer every day."
or
"With Tracealyzer, I was able to quickly understand and solve serious multithreading issues that would have otherwise taken at least two weeks. I was able to solve this issue in a single day."
... confirms my statement that the value of this tool cannot be over-estimated. From a commercial point of view, it pays for itself within a very short time.
However, there is one thing that no developer can avoid: you first have to learn how to use the Tracealyzer sensibly and effectively.
The Tracealyzer makes an enormous amount of information accessible. This can be confusing at first glance. Dealing with this information correctly, finding the "common thread" to get to the bottom of specific causes of problems, needs to be learned first.
This is not "rocket science", but it can still easily happen, that you ...
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Can’t See the wood for the trees So that you don't end up like Mark Twain, proceed as follows: When you open a trace in the Tracealyzer, it is normally opened in a vertical timeline. This view, which shows all activities in the system, is in many ways the core of the Tracealyzer. Most other views are linked to this timeline.
But with its vast amount of information, this first view is not always the best starting point. It is quite possible not to see the wood for the trees.
You can get an initial overview of the Tracealyzer here.
There you will find starting guides for each supported RTOS, videos and much more:
- Tracealyzer 4: A short demonstration showing some (but not all) of the many new features.
- Trace Visualization: Walk-through of the visualization in the main trace view, what is displayed and how.
- Navigate and Search: Explains the basic functionality of the main trace view, including zooming, scrolling and finding relevant events.
Be sure to read the user manual that comes with Tracealyzer (see the "Help" menu). Especially the section Creating and loading traces.
If you have any questions, please contact us at support@percepio.com. We greatly appreciate your feedback.
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The right Licensing Percepio has simplified its licensing options and better adapted them to project requirements. The subscription license offered since last year is an all-inclusive solution:
As a subscription license, you can use Tracealyzer with all operating systems supported by Percepio (FreeRTOS, Zephyr RTOS, Azure RTOS ThreadX, Keil RTX5, Linux, VxWorks, µC/OS-III, On Time RTOS-32 and Bare Metal (without RTOS).
This is the best solution for larger development groups in which projects are executed in parallel on different RTOSes. A subscription license is also a good option if you have not yet decided on your RTOS and are currently evaluating several.
Here are the different license options:
Node Locked License This is the simplest option for single users and small teams. The single user subscription offers node-locked license seats, each valid for one year and includes technical support and software updates during this period. The license is delivered in the form of a license key file that is installed on the computer running Tracealyzer. Depending on your needs, you can extend the subscription for a further year after expiry.
Floating License For larger teams, we offer a multi-user subscription with floating licenses, each valid for one year and including technical support and software updates during this time. This allows an unlimited number of Tracealyzer installations within the organization, but the number of concurrent users is limited by the number of floating seats.
This license is a multi-site license, i.e. the software can be used by any developer at any site in your organization. The subscription has a term of 12 months. The subscription can also be extended for a further year after expiry.
Academic Licenses For non-commercial use by academic users, Percepio offers free individual licenses. Universities and other institutions of higher education can use the university package, a multi-user license with a shared license key. The price is reduced by 90% compared to the commercial licenses. The minimum package is valid for 10 workstations. Details can be found here.
You can test Tracealyzer free of charge for a limited time. Register for the evaluation on the download page and you will receive a time-limited single-user license with full functionality by e-mail within a few minutes. This license cannot be extended via the automatic form. If you need more time for your evaluation, please contact support@percepio.com for support.
The sooner you get an idea of the advantages and benefits of Tracealyzer, the sooner your project - and ultimately you - will benefit.
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Percepio’s new CEO: Andreas Lifvendahl
The best way to introduce Andreas Lifvendahl is with a quote:
"In the future, Percepio will continue to support the developer community and follow the trend lines of modern software development to meet more and more of the challenges ahead.
We call this concept Continuous Observability.
The hard boundaries between development, integration, testing, deployment, device monitoring and maintenance are dissolving. Development never stops, and we believe that product teams should not only have the same level of observability and insight throughout the product lifecycle as they have in the initial development phase, but that they are entitled to it.
They have the right to stay in the loop - because development never stops, and neither should creativity."
You can't really add anything more to that!
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Without the cold and desolation of winter, the warmth and splendor of spring would not exist. (Lao Tzu, 6th century BC) I wish you happy Easter holidays.
Yours Sincerely, Marian A. Wosnitza
„The disadvantage of intelligence is,
that one is forced to learn all the time.“
(George Bernhard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish writer)
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