In: 95, Fraunhofer Institut Software- und Systemtechnik: ISST-Berichte 29, pages 1-33. October 1995. ISSN 0943-1624.
Abstract: A Petri net based methodology is outlined for an integrated qualitative and quantitative analysis of parallel software systems which is based on different (Petri) net representations of the software system under consideration.
The software validation methodology starts from the source text of a set of communicating processes which specify the system under development. From this source text skeleton, a Petri net representation of the general control structure of the system is generated. On this basis a set of reduction steps is defined for transforming the net into different intermediate representations allowing the validation of both qualitative and qualitative properties. Particular attention is paid to the validation of quantitative properties which is performed using a transformation into locally Markovian Object Nets (MONs). Models of this new class of modular Petri nets are obtained by property-preserving structural compression and by enhancement with quantitative information. This information is obtained in the form of frequency and delay parameters by monitoring and testing the software on the basis of prototypes.
Compared to a previous paper on the same topic, the methodology as well as its presentation have been improved. In particular, a new, more comprehensive running example has been selected and the object net approach is explained in much more detail.
Keywords: Performance models; Software validation techniques; Parallel systems software engineering; Formal methods; Petri nets; Object nets.