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Dr Ralf Huuck, Bug Hunter

20 October 2009

NICTA’s “Goanna” Project Leader Dr. Ralf Huuck is a busy man. Apart from his research work, he is preparing Goanna for spin-out as Red Lizard Software www.RedLizards.com while keeping up his work as a Conjoint Senior Lecturer with the UNSW School of Computer Science and Engineering.

In this role, he teaches students about algorithmic verification such as model checking, abstract interpretation and data flow analysis. (Because it is almost impossible to guarantee the correctness of a system, and in turn the absence of bugs, by usual software engineering practices, the formal methods community has developed various techniques and tools that allow the automatic analysis of systems and software. The application of these fully automatic techniques is typically called algorithmic verification.)

Dr Huuck’s teaching interests have been reflected in his work on Goanna, where he and his team have developed a system that automatically detects bugs early in the software development process. The Goanna research project started as a pilot project at NICTA in 2005.
“Our solution is like a sophisticated spell-checker for software,” explains Ralf Huuck. “It detects issues that are otherwise hard to find by traditional testing methods, such as crashes, memory leaks or security vulnerabilities.”
The Goanna solution integrates seamlessly into the Visual Studio and Eclipse IDE (Integrated Development Environment). Goanna reports bugs in a similar fashion to a compiler, but offers additional tools to trace warnings. Goanna checks different classes of code deficiencies including memory leaks, buffer overruns, memory corruptions and null point dereferences.

Earlier in his career, Dr Huuck completed a PhD at Germany’s University of Kiel in the area of software technology. “I was working on the design and analysis of embedded systems theory and software,” he says. Although Dr Huuck started out this way, as a theoretical computer scientist, he is also a proponent of realistic applications and solving problems that matter in the real world.

It is this interest that led him to a role at NICTA. He saw an opportunity when he was engaged in Postdoctoral research at UNSW School of Computer Science and Engineering. “At this time NICTA had just been created,” Dr Huuck recalls, “The organisation was a research start-up and I saw a good opportunity to create something new, different and exciting.”

Dr Huuck found that he could take on more responsible and higher impact research tasks than he could in Germany, with NICTA’s use-inspired research focus providing potential traction in solving real-world problems: “It is a different environment from uni – you can do more things outside the realms of the ivory tower.”

Unlike some computer scientists, Dr Huuck did not always have his mind set on a career in the field. His choice of a combined Computer Science and Business degree for his undergraduate studies was made more in the spirit of intelligent gamble than as a moment of vocational clarity. “A friend of mine signed up to Computer Science so I followed! It was probably a lack of decision-making that led me here,” he jokes.

Any sense of indecision did not last long. Dr Huuck has worked consistently as a computer scientist since then in a career which has included involvement in several projects funded by the German government and the European Union. He has held several visiting researchers appointments in France, Australia, Japan and Hong Kong.

Dr Huuck is a published author in more than 30 scientific proceedings, and has been a speaker at dozens of international conferences. He has led the research and development of the underlying Goanna technology at NICTA for over four years and has been responsible for transforming a unique idea into a new product. At the end of June this year, he co-chaired the 4th International Workshop on Systems Software Verification (SSV'09) Real Software, Real Problems, Real Solutions, in Aachen, Germany.
Goanna is well-suited to C/C++ software developers, particularly in embedded systems industries such as consumer electronics, automotive, aerospace, telecoms, networks and defence. The software can be downloaded at the Red Lizard Software web site at www.RedLizards.com and is available for 30-day free trial.

Dr Ralf Huuck is the technical lead at Red Lizard Software. Dr Huuck has been leading the research and development of the underlying Goanna technology at NICTA, Australia. He has been guiding the transformation of a unique idea into the next generation of static program analysis. In his earlier career Dr Huuck completed his PhD at the University of Kiel in the area of Software Technology. Although starting out as a theoretical computer scientist, he has been a vivid proponent of realistic applications and solving problems that matter in the real world and carrying out the idea in several projects funded by the German government and the European Union. Dr Huuck held several visiting researchers appointments in France, Australia, Japan and Hong Kong. He is a published author in more than 30 scientific proceedings, and has been a speaker at dozens of international conferences.

About RedLizard Software
Red Lizard Software is the first company to combine the technologies of static analysis and model checking to create a unique, fast, and precise static analysis solution. Goanna software detects bugs and other software vulnerabilities automatically, often in a matter of seconds, and at development time, saving developers’ money and helping keep product launch timetables on track.

Written by: Jon Tanner

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