CAST Unveils Rapid Portfolio Analysis SaaS Solution to Identify Application Portfolio Risk

CAST announced the release of Rapid Portfolio Analysis or RPA, cloud-based software as a service offering. The company specializes in offering software analysis and measurement solutions.

RPA, from CAST, is a SaaS (News - Alert) solution which is capable of proactively identifying application portfolio risk and bloat. It actually performs a code level analysis of applications from the cloud besides avoiding the necessity to move code from the owner’s end of the application.

According to an official statement, RPA does not need deployment or training, no dedicated hardware and it also eliminates the need for transfer of source code outside the organization. RPA provides greater visibility and portfolio analytics and hence enhances time-to-value, reduces costs and facilitates portfolio prioritization and decision-making.

Officials explained that this service was designed to be simple, affordable and serve as an on-demand alternative to enterprise application portfolio management or project portfolio management solutions. RPA can provide feedback on software health automatically and offer crucial information to executives who will help them find applications necessary for investigation, modernization and monitoring of structural issues.

Also organizations will have the required information to reduce IT expenditures effectively by revealing structural quality risk within portfolios; offer metrics and trending to measure changes in quality; help in analysis of portfolios by sourcing strategy and bringing down production risk and maintenance cost by boosting visibility.

RPA help executives to assess applications based on business value and adaptability risk besides identifying root causes of software risk and complexity. RPA is based on CAST Highlight, a cloud-based SaaS solution that offers IT executives knowledge about all applications. It is a lightweight platform that rapidly reads and does not need to upload code. It easily assesses an IT portfolio based on certain set software quality standards.

Vincent Delaroche, CAST CEO remarked, “Industry research tells us that 20-25 percent of ADM budgets are spent on ageing legacy applications and 60-70 percent on maintenance and support, leaving little to respond to the challenges of the business. RPA is designed to provide CIOs visibility at unprecedented speed and fidelity so they can quickly focus on the areas of highest potential risk to business and to cost.”

CAST released an automated analysis and measurement software for SAP (News - Alert), Siebel and PeopleSoft in 2010 to deal with the then growing need for consistent and objective measurement of these popular ERP platforms to eliminate costly customization errors in critical business applications.