Offerings set for Microsoft apps development platform Compuware on Tuesday will announce tools providing fault simulation and security analysis for developers building applications on the Microsoft platform.

DevPartner Fault Simulator tests and debugs error-handling code in native and .Net managed code without disrupting the application operation or debugging environment, Compuware said. This is done through use of simulated faults injected into the application code. The simulator enables the application to act as if a fault were present so the reaction can be monitored without affecting other applications or the operating system, according to Compuware. Developers can work in a predictable environment to analyze and debug application error-handling code.

A .Net Framework fault can be simulated as either a line of code or globally. Environmental failures related to disk I/O, memory, the network or registry also can be simulated. Fault conditions can be defined, saved, and reused.

DevPartner Fault Simulator is integrated within the Visual Studio .Net IDE for seamless testing, according to Compuware. It also can work independently.

DevPartner SecurityChecker is a security analysis to locate and fix security vulnerabilities in ASP.Net applications.

The product uses three modes of analysis:

* Compile time, to determine if security issues exist by examining metadata, intermediate language code, *.aspx files, and web.config files; vulnerabilities detected can include inheritance threats and weak security on passwords.

* Run-time, to watch inside the application to detect errors as they occur, such as privileged API use, excessive file and registry access, and unhandled exceptions

* Integrity, to simulate an external attack by playing a modified HTTP-based session to check vulnerability to cross-site scripting attacks, SQL injection attacks, buffer overflows, command injection, and parameter tampering

DevPartner Fault Simulator is priced at US$5,000 per concurrent user; DevPartner Security Checker costs $10,000 per concurrent user. Volume discounts are available. Both products are available as of Tuesday.

Compuware on Saturday is shipping a new version of its IT governance offering, Compuware IT Governance by Changepoint, version 9.04, which integrates with other Compuware development, quality assurance and service management products. Compuware acquired Changepoint in April 2004 for $100 million.

IT governance software is for CIOs, CFOs, and CEOs to better manage the operations of IT as a business unit, said Chuck Tatham, vice president of governance marketing at Compuware. "Rightly or wrongly, the term 'IT governance' has popped up as a name for this software," Tatham said.

IT management, through the governance product, is provided with a complete picture of the performance of technology investments, according to Compuware.

"This is filling the need for visibility and control over the operation of IT," Tatham said.

Version 9.04 has been integrated with Compuware's Vantage product for application performance management. IT Governance users can receive notifications from Vantage when there is a problem.

Other integrations have been made with Compuware CARS (Compuware Application Reliability Solution), for quality assurance, and Compuware's Strobe and Abend-Aid Fault Manager products, for tracking errors on mainframe environments.

Version 9.04 has an average price of $1,000 per user and is sold on a role-based model.