Functional and Temporal Analysis of Concurrent Systems

Modern computer systems use concurrent and distributed processing, which is very diierent from the sequential processing of earlier systems. Concurrency and synchro-nisation in such systems have multiplied the diiculties associated with analysing their correctness and performance. Generalised Stochastic Petri nets (GSPNs) allow for a natural expression of con-currency and support both types of analysis. This document presents an overview of the theory behind the use of GSPNs for correctness and performance analysis and describes a GSPN-based software tool for the modelling and analysing of concurrent systems. The tool is unique in that it allows for the hierarchical description of models and is portable to a number of diierent hardware and software platforms. The system checks for boundedness, liveness, deadlock and home states using either invariant analysis or a coverability graph. Performance analysis is either through exact steady state Markov chain analysis or simulation. The paper concludes with a report on a detailed functional and performance analysis of the internet TFTP protocol.