This volume discusses the fundamental problems of designing logically consistent methods of communication between multiple computer processes. Standard protocol design problems, such as error control and flow control, are covered in detail, but also structured design methods and the construction of formal validation models. The book contains complete listings and explanations of new protocol validation and design tool called SPIN. Author is in charge of protocol design at Bell Labs. Professionals who bought Tanenbaum's COMPUTER NETWORKS, 2/E and Comer's TCP/IP will buy this. This is the first book to cover automated protocol design and validation tools extensively.

This volume presents the latest research worldwide on communications protocols, emphasizing specification and compliance testing. It presents the complete proceedings of the fifteenth meeting on `Protocol Specification, Testing and Verification' arranged by the International Federation for Information Processing.

Communication protocols form the operational basis of computer networks and telecommunication systems. They are behavior conventions that describe how communication systems interact with each other, defining the temporal order of the interactions and the formats of the data units exchanged – essentially they determine the efficiency and reliability of computer networks. Protocol Engineering is an important discipline covering the design, validation, and implementation of communication protocols. Part I of this book is devoted to the fundamentals of communication protocols, describing their working principles and implicitly also those of computer networks. The author introduces the concepts of service, protocol, layer, and layered architecture, and introduces the main elements required in the description of protocols using a model language. He then presents the most important protocol functions. Part II deals with the description of communication protocols, offering an overview of the various formal methods, the essence of Protocol Engineering. The author introduces the fundamental description methods, such as finite state machines, Petri nets, process calculi, and temporal logics, that are in part used as semantic models for formal description techniques. He then introduces one representative technique for each of the main description approaches, among others SDL and LOTOS, and surveys the use of UML for describing protocols. Part III covers the protocol life cycle and the most important development stages, presenting the reader with approaches for systematic protocol design, with various verification methods, with the main implementation techniques, and with strategies for their testing, in particular with conformance and interoperability tests, and the test description language TTCN. The author uses the simple data transfer example protocol XDT (eXample Data Transfer) throughout the book as a reference protocol to exemplify the various description techniques and to demonstrate important validation and implementation approaches. The book is an introduction to communication protocols and their development for undergraduate and graduate students of computer science and communication technology, and it is also a suitable reference for engineers and programmers. Most chapters contain exercises, and the author's accompanying website provides further online material including a complete formal description of the XDT protocol and an animated simulation visualizing its behavior.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems, TACAS '97, held in Enschede, The Netherlands, in April 1997. The book presents 20 revised full papers and 5 tool demonstrations carefully selected out of 54 submissions; also included are two extended abstracts and a full paper corresponding to invited talks. The papers are organized in topical sections on space reduction techniques, tool demonstrations, logical techniques, verification support, specification and analysis, and theorem proving, model checking and applications.

For more than a decade, researchers and engineers have been addressing the problem of the application of formal description techniques to protocol specification, implementation, testing and verification. This book identifies the many successes that have been achieved within the industrial framework and the difficulties encountered in applying theoretical methods to practical situations. Issues discussed include: testing and certification; verification; validation; environments and automated tools; formal specifications; protocol conversion; implementation; specification languages and models. Consideration is also given to the concerns surrounding education available to students and the need to upgrade and develop this through sponsorship of a study of an appropriate curriculum at both undergraduate and graduate levels. It is hoped this publication will stimulate such support and inspire further research in this important arena.

This volume contains the proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems (TACAS 2004). TACAS 2004 took place in Barcelona, Spain, from March 29th to April 2nd, as part of the 7th European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software (ETAPS 2004), whose aims, organization, and history are detailed in a foreword by the ETAPS Steering Committee Chair, Jos ́ e Luiz Fiadeiro. TACAS is a forum for researchers, developers, and users interested in ri- rously based tools for the construction and analysis of systems. The conference serves to bridge the gaps between di?erent communities including, but not - mited to, those devoted to formal methods, software and hardware veri?cation, static analysis, programming languages, software engineering, real-time systems, and communication protocols that share common interests in, and techniques for, tool development. In particular, by providing a venue for the discussion of common problems, heuristics, algorithms, data structures, and methodologies, TACAS aims to support researchers in their quest to improve the utility, rel- bility, ?exibility, and e?ciency of tools for building systems. TACASseekstheoreticalpaperswithaclearlinktotoolconstruction,papers describingrelevantalgorithmsandpracticalaspectsoftheirimplementation,- pers giving descriptions of tools and associated methodologies, and case studies with a conceptual message.

ETAPS'99 is the second instance of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software. ETAPS is an annual federated conference that was established in 1998 by combining a number of existing and new conferences. This year it comprises ve conferences (FOSSACS, FASE, ESOP, CC, TACAS), four satellite workshops (CMCS, AS, WAGA, CoFI), seven invited lectures, two invited tutorials, and six contributed tutorials. The events that comprise ETAPS address various aspects of the system - velopment process, including speci cation, design, implementation, analysis and improvement. The languages, methodologies and tools which support these - tivities are all well within its scope. Dieren t blends of theory and practice are represented, with an inclination towards theory with a practical motivation on one hand and soundly-based practice on the other. Many of the issues involved in software design apply to systems in general, including hardware systems, and the emphasis on software is not intended to be exclusive.

FORTE/PSTV '97 addresses Formal Description Techniques (FDTs) applicable to Distributed Systems and Communication Protocols (such as Estelle, LOTOS, SDL, ASN.1, TTCN, Z, Automata, Process Algebra, Logic). The conference is a forum for presentation of the state-of-the-art in theory, application, tools and industrialization of FDTs, and provides an excellent orientation for newcomers.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems, TACAS 2001. The 36 revised full papers presented together with an invited contribution were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 125 submissions. The papers are organized in sections on symbolic verification, infinite state systems - deduction and abstraction, application of model checking techniques, timed and probabilistic systems, hardware - design and verification, software verification, testing - techniques and tools, implementation techniques, semantics and compositional verification, logics and model checking, and ETAPS tool demonstration.

This book provides comprehensive coverage of the protocols of communication systems. The book is divided into four parts. Part I covers the basic concepts of system and protocol design and specification, overviews the models and languages for informal and formal specification of protocols, and describes the specification language SDL. In the second part, the basic notions and properties of communication protocols and protocol stacks are explained, including the treatment of the logical correctness and the performance of protocols. In the third part, many methods for message transfer, on which specific communication protocols are based, are explained and formally specified in the SDL language. The fourth part provides for short descriptions of some specific protocols, mainly used in IP networks, in order to acquaint a reader with the practical use of communication methods presented in the third part of the book. The book is relevant to researchers, academics, professionals and students in communications engineering. Provides comprehensive yet granular coverage of the protocols of communication systems Allows readers the ability to understand the formal specification of communication protocols Specifies communication methods and protocols in the specification language SDL, giving readers practical tools to venture on their own