Formal Modeling and Analysis of the HLA Component Integration Standard

Robert J. Allen, David Garlan, and James Ivers

Proceedings of the Sixth International Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE-6), November 1998.

Online links: Postscript PDF BIBTEX Citation

Abstract

An increasingly important trend in the engineering of complex systems is the design of component integration standards. Such standards define rules of interaction and shared communication infrastructure that permit composition of systems out of independently-developed parts. A problem with these standards is that it is often difficult to understand exactly what they require and provide, and to analyze them in order to understand their deeper properties. In this paper we use our experience in modeling the High Level Architecture (HLA) for Distributed Simulation to show how one can capture the structured protocol inherent in an integration standard as a formal architectural model that can be analyzed to detect anomalies, race conditions, and deadlocks.

Keywords

Component integration standards, Component-based software, Protocol families, Software architecture, Formal specification

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