creators_name: Mazzara, Manuel
creators_id: manuel.mazzara@newcastle.ac.uk
type: article
datestamp: 2009-10-01 15:51:18
lastmod: 2010-04-19 15:05:58
metadata_visibility: show
title: Deriving Specifications of Dependable Systems: toward a Method
ispublished: pub
subjects: deploy_method_other
full_text_status: public
abstract: This paper proposes a method for deriving formal specifications of systems. To accomplish this task we
pass through a non trivial number of steps, concepts and
tools where the first one, the most important, is the concept of method itself, since we realized that computer science has a proliferation of languages but very few methods. We also propose the idea of Layered Fault Tolerant Specification (LFTS) to make the method extensible to Dependable Systems. The principle is layering the specification, for the sake of clarity, in (at least) two different levels, the first one for the normal behavior and the others (if more than one) for the abnormal. The abnormal behavior is described in terms of an Error Injector (EI) which represents a model of the erroneous interference coming from the environment. This structure has been inspired by the notion of idealized fault tolerant component but the combination of LFTS and EI using rely guarantee thinking to describe interference can be
considered one of the main contributions of this work. The
progress toward this method and the way to layer specifications.
has been made experimenting on the Transportation
and the Automotive Case Studies of the DEPLOY project.
publication: EWDC 2009
refereed: TRUE
citation:   Mazzara, Manuel   Deriving Specifications of Dependable Systems: toward a Method.  EWDC 2009 .        
document_url: http://deploy-eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/157/1/RigorousDevelopment_1.pdf