MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., June 4, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Coverity, Inc., a Synopsys company (Nasdaq:SNPS), today announced that SIGMA³, a leading technology provider for the oil and gas industry, is working with the Coverity® Development Testing Platform to increase the quality and security of its exploration and production (E&P) software and minimize non-productive time (NPT) for its customers.

According to the Oil & Gas Journal, the E&P industry will spend $250 billion on exploration and drilling in 2014 in the US alone, up 9.3 percent from last year. The operators of these wells require high-performance computing solutions to help guide their drilling efforts, and can't afford product crashes and instability. SIGMA³ offers geoscience and engineering solutions for these companies, advising clients on field development/planning, well placement and completions design to maximize production.

SIGMA³ is leveraging the Coverity platform to test its code automatically throughout the software development lifecycle (SDLC), enabling it to find and fix critical quality and security issues earlier in the development process, and deliver high-quality, secure software to its customers, more efficiently and quickly. The latest version of the SIGMA³ CRYSTAL™ 3D integrated reservoir characterization solution, which includes approximately 1 million lines of C++ code, is now 'Coverity Clean' – all critical, Coverity platform-found defects such as buffer overflows and null pointer dereferences have been found and fixed.

"The age of software in our industry can be 20-25 years old in many cases, and often this technology is not actively maintained, leading to long-standing software defects that lead to non-productive time for clients," said Sean Spicer, chief software architect and lead developer for SIGMA³. "The Coverity platform enables us to find and eliminate these defects systematically, enabling our development and testing teams to focus their attention on improving functionality for clients instead of reproducing random crash bugs. SIGMA³ customers are the ultimate beneficiaries of this effort. We are confident in the quality and reliability of our technology, and proud to call our latest release 'Coverity Clean.'"

"Finding and fixing software quality and security issues at the earliest point in the development lifecycle is a critical component for businesses to remain competitive," said Sunil Nagdev, senior vice president of Global Services for Coverity. "We are committed to arming developers across the globe with tools to create better software and deliver more value to their customers. We commend SIGMA³ for its dedication to high-quality software and its initiative to share its best practices with the broader developer community."

SIGMA³ will share its best practices for implementing and automating software testing on an upcoming webcast:

What: SIGMA³ Shares Best Practices for Becoming Coverity Clean
When: Wednesday, June 4, 2014 at 8:30am PDT 
Where: Register for the webcast

About SIGMA³
Sigma Cubed Inc. (SIGMA³) addresses the demands of the next generation of conventional and unconventional resources producers through the development and delivery of unprecedented GeoEngineering™ integration, resulting in better subsurface reservoir characterization targets and optimal frac and completion strategies. Operators can significantly increase production while reducing costs by fracking the reservoir where it is most productive, and validating their results using the industry's most reliable microseismic acquisition, event detection and location accuracy algorithms.  Through a truly integrated, commercial portfolio of proprietary software, expertise and services, SIGMA³ helps clients target the sweet spots that will yield maximum EUR. For more information visit www.sigmacubed.com

About Coverity
Coverity, Inc., a Synopsys company (Nasdaq:SNPS), is a leading provider of software quality and security testing solutions. Coverity's award-winning development testing platform helps developers create and deliver better software, faster, by automatically testing source code for software defects that could lead to product crashes, unexpected behavior, security breaches or catastrophic system failure. The world's largest brands rely on Coverity to help ensure the quality, safety and security of their products and services. For more information, visit www.coverity.com, follow us on Twitter or check out our blog.

SOURCE Coverity, Inc.