Strategies for Consistency Checking

Viewpoint models of system development are becoming increasingly important. A major requirement for viewpoints modelling is to be able to check that the multiple viewpoint specifications are consistent with one another. The work presented in this report makes a contribution to this task. Our work is particularly influenced by the viewpoints model used in the ISO standardisation architecture for Open Distributed Processing. This report focuses on the issue of strategies for consistency checking. In particular, it considers how global consistency (between any arbitrary number of viewpoints) can be obtained from binary consistency (between two viewpoints). The report documents a number of different classes of consistency checking, from those that are very poorly behaved to those that are very well behaved. The report is intended as a companion to the work presented in [1] and it should be read in association with this document. In particular, the body of this report is a single chapter which should be viewed as additional to the chapters included in [1]. This report contains complete proofs of all relevant results, even though some of the results are obvious and some of the proofs are trivial. A much compressed version of the report is being submitted for publication. Thus, the main value of this report is as a reference document for readers who require a complete presentation of the technical. [1] E. Boiten, H. Bowman, J. Derrick and M. Steen ''Cross Viewpoint Consistency in Open Distributed Processing (Intra Language Consistency)'', Technical Report, Computing Laboratory, University of Kent at Canterbury, report No. 8-95, 1995. Phone: +44 1227 827913, Fax: 44 1227 762811 Email: H.Bowman,E.A.Boiten,J.Derrick,[email protected]

Applying formal methods to standard development: the open distributed processing experience

Since their introduction, formal methods have been applied in various ways to different standards. This paper gives an account of these applications, focusing on one application in particular: the development of a framework for creating standards for Open Distributed Processing (ODP). Following an introduction to ODP, the paper gives an insight into the current work on formalising the architecture of the Reference Model of ODP (RM-ODP), highlighting the advantages to be gained. The different approaches currently being taken are shown, together with their associated advantages and disadvantages. The paper concludes that there is no one all-purpose approach which can be used in preference to all others, but that a combination of approaches is desirable to best fulfil the potential of formal methods in developing an architectural semantics for OD

Multi-perspective requirements engineering for networked business systems: a framework for pattern composition

How business and software analysts explore, document, and negotiate requirements for enterprise systems is critical to the benefits their organizations will eventually derive. In this paper, we present a framework for analysis and redesign of networked business systems. It is based on libraries of patterns which are derived from existing Internet businesses. The framework includes three perspectives: Economic value, Business processes, and Application communication, each of which applies a goal-oriented method to compose patterns. By means of consistency relationships between perspectives, we demonstrate the usefulness of the patterns as a light-weight approach to exploration of business ideas

Supporting ODP - Translating LOTOS to Z

This paper describes a translation of full LOTOS into Z. A common semantic model is defined and the translation is proved correct with respect to the semantics. The motivation for such a translation is the use of multiple viewpoints for specifying complex systems defined by the reference model of the Open Distributed Processing (ODP) standardization initiative. The postscript version available here is an extended version of what was published

Unification and multiple views of data in Z

This paper discusses the unification of Z specifications, in particular specifications that maintain different representations of what is intended to be the same datatype. Essentially this amounts to integrating previously published techniques for combining multiple viewpoints and for combining multiple views. It is shown how the technique proposed in this paper indeed produces unifications, and that it generalises both previous techniques

Semantic verification of Behavior Conformance

This paper introduces a formal yet practical method to verify whether the behavior design of a distributed application conforms to the behavior design of the enterprise in which the application is embedded. The method allows both enterprise architects and application architects to talk about designs in their own terms, and introduces a common set of terms as the linking pin between enterprise and application designs. The formal semantics of these common terms allows us to verify the conformance between an enterprise and its applications formally and automatically

When Things Matter: A Data-Centric View of the Internet of Things

With the recent advances in radio-frequency identification (RFID), low-cost wireless sensor devices, and Web technologies, the Internet of Things (IoT) approach has gained momentum in connecting everyday objects to the Internet and facilitating machine-to-human and machine-to-machine communication with the physical world. While IoT offers the capability to connect and integrate both digital and physical entities, enabling a whole new class of applications and services, several significant challenges need to be addressed before these applications and services can be fully realized. A fundamental challenge centers around managing IoT data, typically produced in dynamic and volatile environments, which is not only extremely large in scale and volume, but also noisy, and continuous. This article surveys the main techniques and state-of-the-art research efforts in IoT from data-centric perspectives, including data stream processing, data storage models, complex event processing, and searching in IoT. Open research issues for IoT data management are also discussed

Incremental Consistency Checking in Delta-oriented UML-Models for Automation Systems

Automation systems exist in many variants and may evolve over time in order to deal with different environment contexts or to fulfill changing customer requirements. This induces an increased complexity during design-time as well as tedious maintenance efforts. We already proposed a multi-perspective modeling approach to improve the development of such systems. It operates on different levels of abstraction by using well-known UML-models with activity, composite structure and state chart models. Each perspective was enriched with delta modeling to manage variability and evolution. As an extension, we now focus on the development of an efficient consistency checking method at several levels to ensure valid variants of the automation system. Consistency checking must be provided for each perspective in isolation, in-between the perspectives as well as after the application of a delta.Comment: In Proceedings FMSPLE 2016, arXiv:1603.0857