Process description languages (PDLs) are appealing for specifying distributed systems mainly because of their compositionality and expressiveness properties. On the other hand, Petri nets, while lacking linguistical structure, offer the advantage of a truly concurrent framework. Our proposal unifies the models of PDLs and Petri nets in a common specification framework. The binding is given by means of an algebraic approach, which allows us to have in the same algebra both the interleaving and the true concurrency aspects of a distributed system. Starting with the description of a system as a CCS agent, we obtain automatically, by means of axioms, its representation as a Petri net. The idea of the step by step inclusion of axioms is new in this context, and allows us to construct a complex model by assembling simple pieces. Moreover, we examine some important aspects of the design of distributed systems, and show how our approach can be useful for dealing with them.
AXIOMATIZING CCS, NETS AND PROCESSES
DE FRANCESCO, NICOLETTA;MONTANARI, UGO GIOVANNI ERASMO;
1993-01-01
Abstract
Process description languages (PDLs) are appealing for specifying distributed systems mainly because of their compositionality and expressiveness properties. On the other hand, Petri nets, while lacking linguistical structure, offer the advantage of a truly concurrent framework. Our proposal unifies the models of PDLs and Petri nets in a common specification framework. The binding is given by means of an algebraic approach, which allows us to have in the same algebra both the interleaving and the true concurrency aspects of a distributed system. Starting with the description of a system as a CCS agent, we obtain automatically, by means of axioms, its representation as a Petri net. The idea of the step by step inclusion of axioms is new in this context, and allows us to construct a complex model by assembling simple pieces. Moreover, we examine some important aspects of the design of distributed systems, and show how our approach can be useful for dealing with them.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
