PreEmptive Solutions Dotfuscator Pro Case Study
ISV protects Intellectual Property, improves application security and fights piracy through Software + Services + Instrumentation
Customer: PH2 Solutions, Inc.
Web Site: www.ph2solutions.com
Country or Region: United States
Industry: Automotive
Customer Profile
PH2 Solutions provides patented software-based automotive diagnostics that improve accuracy and reduce the time and expense required to detect violations and validate repairs.
Software and Services
- Dotfuscator Professional
- Obfuscation
- Tamper Defense
- SLP Code Cartridge
- Microsoft Software Licensing and Protection (SLP) Services
- Microsoft Team Foundation Server
Business Needs
"PH2 Solutions had to address two primary issues: first, protecting the released binaries from potential reverse engineering and tampering; second, controlling and monetizing the use of NPL through a simple and easy to use licensing mechanism," says Tichelaar. "Nu-Path Logic software must run on the road and inside garages. The runtime environments are not typical computing or even corporate settings – making quality, security and usage control even more essential to our business. All of these business-critical requirements had to be met without impacting our delivery or functionality commitments."
Solution
After extensive evaluations and testing, PH2 Solutions deployed the following components:
- Dotfuscator Professional integrates into Visual Studio at a desktop development level.
- Microsoft SLP Services are used extensively to handle licensing control of all deployed software. The creation and management of license keys are fundamental to the system setup process when the software is sold. SLP Services also control internal test and development environments as well as external demonstration systems used by customers on trial versions.
- Microsoft Team Foundation Server manages the software development life cycle and all Dotfuscator files are managed in source control as part of each project.
The software build process includes specific steps when generating a product build to inject the Microsoft SLP APIs and protect the software using Dotfuscator, then digitally sign the compiled binaries, and package the key elements for deployment.
In the customer’s own words
PH2 Solutions identified the following key factors that have driven their company’s satisfaction with PreEmptive Solutions and Microsoft SLP Services:
- Product Quality. "Dotfuscator has always been very high quality. Once the basic concepts are understood, it did exactly what it claimed and performed as expected. It is very reliable and continues to improve with each new release."
- Customer Service. "PreEmptive Solutions support has always been exemplary. Service agents are knowledgeable and extremely willing to help with all issues. We chose to take PreEmptive Solutions’ extended support for Microsoft SLP Services in addition to their standard support and maintenance for Dotfuscator. This proved to be very valuable in understanding how these parts worked independently and in combination."
Benefits
"They key benefit is that Dotfuscator simply works and the implementation was very easy to do. Developing a robust protection system for the software we generate much less a licensing control system would be a taxing effort and likely derail us from improving the solution we currently offer to customers."
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