Specifying Multimedia Binding Objects in Z

Abstract

The current standardisation activity of Open Distributed Processing (ODP) has attempted to incorporate multimedia flows of information into its architecture through the idea of stream interfaces. At present the reference model of ODP (ODP-RM) abstracts from the precise nature of the flows of information. As a consequence of this, the ODPRM only deals with syntactic aspects of stream interfaces and does not require them to satisfy any behavioural considerations. It is shown in this paper how the formal notation Z can be used to reason about these flows of information in a manner that enables behavioural as well as temporal aspects to be considered. The example given to highlight the approach is the ODP concept of a binding object