Supporting user-oriented analysis for multi-view domain-specific visual languages

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in Information and Software Technology. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2008 Elsevier B.V.The integration of usable and flexible analysis support in modelling environments is a key success factor in Model-Driven Development. In this paradigm, models are the core asset from which code is automatically generated, and thus ensuring model correctness is a fundamental quality control activity. For this purpose, a common approach is to transform the system models into formal semantic domains for verification. However, if the analysis results are not shown in a proper way to the end-user (e.g. in terms of the original language) they may become useless. In this paper we present a novel DSVL called BaVeL that facilitates the flexible annotation of verification results obtained in semantic domains to different formats, including the context of the original language. BaVeL is used in combination with a consistency framework, providing support for all steps in a verification process: acquisition of additional input data, transformation of the system models into semantic domains, verification, and flexible annotation of analysis results. The approach has been validated analytically by the cognitive dimensions framework, and empirically by its implementation and application to several DSVLs. Here we present a case study of a notation in the area of Digital Libraries, where the analysis is performed by transformations into Petri nets and a process algebra.Spanish Ministry of Education and Science and MODUWEB

Dependability modeling and evaluation – From AADL to stochastic Petri nets

Conduire des analyses de sûreté de fonctionnement conjointement avec d'autres analyses au niveau architectural permet à la fois de prédire les effets des décisions architecturales sur la sûreté de fonctionnement du système et de faire des compromis. Par conséquent, les industriels et les universitaires se concentrent sur la définition d'approches d'ingénierie guidées par des modèles (MDE) et sur l'intégration de diverses analyses dans le processus de développement. AADL (Architecture Analysis and Design Language) a prouvé son aptitude pour la modélisation d'architectures et ce langage est actuellement jugé efficace par les industriels dans de telles approches. Notre contribution est un cadre de modélisation permettant la génération de modèles analytiques de sûreté de fonctionnement à partir de modèles AADL dans l‘objectif de faciliter l'évaluation de mesures de sûreté de fonctionnement comme la fiabilité et la disponibilité. Nous proposons une approche itérative de modélisation. Dans ce contexte, nous fournissons un ensemble de sous-modèles génériques réutilisables pour des architectures tolérantes aux fautes. Le modèle AADL de sûreté de fonctionnement est transformé en un RdPSG (Réseau de Petri Stochastique Généralisé) en appliquant des règles de transformation de modèle. Nous avons implémenté un outil de transformation automatique. Le RdPSG résultant peut être traité par des outils existants pour obtenir des mesures de sûreté de fonctionnement. L'approche est illustrée sur un ensemble du Système Informatique Français de Contrôle de Trafic Aérien. ABSTRACT : Performing dependability evaluation along with other analyses at architectural level allows both predicting the effects of architectural decisions on the dependability of a system and making tradeoffs. Thus, both industry and academia focus on defining model driven engineering (MDE) approaches and on integrating several analyses in the development process. AADL (Architecture Analysis and Design Language) has proved to be efficient for architectural modeling and is considered by industry in the context presented above. Our contribution is a modeling framework allowing the generation of dependability-oriented analytical models from AADL models, to facilitate the evaluation of dependability measures, such as reliability or availability. We propose an iterative approach for system dependability modeling using AADL. In this context, we also provide a set of reusable modeling patterns for fault tolerant architectures. The AADL dependability model is transformed into a GSPN (Generalized Stochastic Petri Net) by applying model transformation rules. We have implemented an automatic model transformation tool. The resulting GSPN can be processed by existing tools to obtain dependability measures. The modeling approach is illustrated on a subsystem of the French Air trafic Control System