A Formal Approach to the Integration of Performance Aspects in the Modeling and Analysis of Concurrent Systems

A formal approach for modeling and analyzing concurrent systems is proposed which integrates performance characteristics in the early stages of the design process. The approach relies on both stochastically timed process algebras and stochastically timed Petri nets in order to exploit their complementary advantages. The approach is instantiated to the case of EMPA (Extended Markovian Process Algebra), introduced together with the collection of its four semantics and the notion of equivalence that are required in order to implement the approach. Finally, the case study of the alternating bit protocol is presented to illustrate the adequacy of the approach. 1 Introduction The desirability of taking into account the performance aspects of a concurrent system in the early stages of its design has been widely recognized [YK82, Fer86, Har86, BV88]. Nevertheless, it often happens that a concurrent system is tested for efficiency only after it has been fully designed and tested for functional..