SCSC2003 Abstract S6312
Simulation-based Tools for Validation of Distributed Network Protocols
Simulation-based Tools for Validation of Distributed Network Protocols
Submitting Author: Dr. Kaliappa Ravindran
Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to provide a simulation-based
methodology to validate network protocols for correctness.
The methodology is based on `state-machine modeling' of a
protocol in the context of meeting an application-level goal
under a given operating environment. Our idea is in modeling
the environment as a state-machine and composing it with
the protocol state-machine for simulation and/or analysis.
To alleviate the problem of a combinatorial explosion of
the protocol state space to be analyzed, a simulation based
approach offers a tractable solution to the problem. Here,
only selected subspaces of a protocol execution model are
exercised to trace errors. The approach yields a reasonable
level of confidence in a correctness analysis, without
having to resort to unwieldy state space searches. The
paper illustrates our trace analysis based simulation
methodology with three sample protocols: alternating-bit
based data transfer, Peterson's 2-process mutual exclusion,
and 2-phase commit based secure voting.
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