Mesa: Support for scenario-based design of concurrent systems

Ben-Abdallah, Hanêne; Leue, Stefan

doi:10.1007/bfb0054168

Cited by 30 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 9 publications

(32 reference statements)

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“…MSC-graphs can be viewed as an early model of the system that can be subjected to formal analysis. This has motivated the development of algorithms for a variety of analyses including detecting race conditions and timing conflicts [3], pattern matching [14], detecting non-local choice [6], and model checking [4], and tools such as uBET [10] and MESA [5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Realizability and Verification of MSC Graphs

Alur¹,

Etessami²,

Yannakakis³

2001

Automata, Languages and Programming

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Scenario-based specifications such as message sequence charts (MSC) offer an intuitive and visual way to describe design requirements. MSC-graphs allow convenient expression of multiple scenarios, and can be viewed as an early model of the system that can be subjected to a variety of analyses. Problems such as LTL model checking are undecidable for MSC-graphs in general, but are known to be decidable for the class of bounded MSC-graphs.Our first set of results concerns checking realizability of bounded MSC-graphs. An MSC-graph is realizable if there is a distributed implementation that generates precisely the behaviors in the graph. There are two notions of realizability, weak and safe, depending on whether or not we require the implementation to be deadlock-free. It is known that for a finite set of MSCs, weak realizability is coNP-complete while safe realizability has a polynomial-time solution. We establish that for bounded MSC-graphs, weak realizability is, surprisingly, undecidable, while safe realizability is in EXPSPACE.Our second set of results concerns verification of MSC-graphs. While checking properties of a graph G, besides verifying all the scenarios in the set L(G) of MSCs specified by G, it is desirable to verify all the scenarios in the set L w (G)--the closure of G, that contains the implied scenarios that any distributed implementation of G must include. For checking whether a given MSC M is a possible behavior, checking M ∈ L(G) is NP-complete, but checking M ∈ L w (G) has a quadratic solution. For temporal logic specifications, considering the closure makes the verification problem harder: while checking LTL properties of L(G) is PSPACE-complete for bounded graphs G, checking even simple "local" properties of L w (G) is undecidable. AbstractScenario-based specifications such as message sequence charts (MSC) offer an intuitive and visual way to describe design requirements. MSC-graphs allow convenient expression of multiple scenarios, and can be viewed as an early model of the system that can be subjected to a variety of analyses. Problems such as LTL model checking are undecidable for MSC-graphs in general, but are known to be decidable for the class of bounded MSC-graphs.Our first set of results concerns checking realizability of bounded MSC-graphs. An MSC-graph is realizable if there is a distributed implementation that generates precisely the behaviors in the graph. There are two notions of realizability, weak and safe, depending on whether or not we require the implementation to be deadlock-free. It is known that for a finite set of MSCs, weak realizability is coNPcomplete while safe realizability has a polynomial-time solution. We establish that for bounded MSC-graphs, weak realizability is, surprisingly, undecidable, while safe realizability is in Expspace.Our second set of results concerns verification of MSC-graphs. While checking properties of a graph G, besides verifying all the scenarios in the set L(G) of MSCs specified by G, it is desirable to verify all the scenarios in...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Realizability and Verification of MSC Graphs

Alur¹,

Etessami²,

Yannakakis³

2001

Automata, Languages and Programming

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“…Step 1: Non-local Choice Detection The algorithm proposed in [2] and implemented inside the MESA framework [3] may be applied to detect non-local choices in MSC specifications. Informally, the tool examines the MSCs involved in a choice and verify that they all have the same unique process which sends the first event.…”

Section: The Algorithmmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detecting Implied Scenarios Analyzing Non-local Branching Choices

Muccini

2003

Fundamental Approaches to Software Engineering

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Abstract. Scenarios are powerful tools to model and analyze software systems. However, since they do not provide a complete description of the system, but just some possible execution paths, they are usually integrated with state machines. State machines may be extracted from scenarios using a synthesis process. We could expect that the synthesized state machine model is "equivalent" to the original scenario specification. Instead, it has been proven that it does not always hold, and state machines may introduce unexpected behaviors, called implied scenarios. This paper proves that there is a strict correlation between implied scenarios and non-local branching choices. Based on this result, we propose an approach to identify implied scenarios in High-Level Message Sequence Chart specifications and its application to some specifications. We finally highlight advantages with respect to existent approaches.

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“…We present the analysis of 4 scenario-based models: two different ATMs [4,22], a web interface application [6], and a toaster [15]. Other models that have been analyzed but not reported here due to space restrictions are the steam boiler [21], a GSM mobility management protocol [Leue98], scenarios for an automated transport system [21], for a safety injection system of a nuclear power plant [9], and for a web-based payment system.…”

Section: Examplesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A scenario-based model describing user interaction with an ATM machine is presented in [4]. This model is composed of 13 bMSCs representing small episodes of ATM behaviours (such as GetPinCode, ProcessPinCode, RefusePinCode, Withdraw, etc.)…”

Section: A First Atm Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Because scenarios are used at a very early stage of system development, it is certainly worthwhile to perform analysis before inferring other models. This has motivated the development of a variety of analysis techniques including detecting race conditions and timing conflicts [1], non-local choices [4], implied scenarios [3,21], and performing pattern matching [16], and model-checking [2]. A scenario corresponds to a single temporal sequence of interactions between components of a system.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Monitoring and control in scenario-based requirements analysis

Letier¹,

Kramer²,

Magee³

et al.

Proceedings. 27th International Conference on Software Engineering, 2005. ICSE 2005.

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Scenarios are an effective means for eliciting, validating and documenting requirements. At the requirements level, scenarios describe sequences of interactions between the software-to-be and agents in the environment. Interactions correspond to the occurrence of an event that is controlled by one agent and monitored by another. This paper presents a technique to analyse requirements-level scenarios for unforeseen, potentially harmful, consequences. Our aim is to perform analysis early in system development, where it is highly cost-effective. The approach recognises the importance of monitoring and control issues and extends existing work on implied scenarios accordingly. These so-called input-output implied scenarios expose problematic behaviours in scenario descriptions that cannot be detected using standard implied scenarios. Validation of these implied scenarios supports requirements elaboration. We demonstrate the relevance of inputoutput implied scenarios using a number of examples.

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Mesa: Support for scenario-based design of concurrent systems

Cited by 30 publications

References 9 publications

Realizability and Verification of MSC Graphs

Realizability and Verification of MSC Graphs

Detecting Implied Scenarios Analyzing Non-local Branching Choices

Monitoring and control in scenario-based requirements analysis

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