. In this paper we present a new technique for performance modelling and a tool supporting this approach. Performance Evaluation Process Algebra (PEPA) [1] is an algebraic language which can beused to build models of computer systems which capture information about the performance of the system. The PEPA language serves two purposes as a formal description language for computer system models. The performance-related information in the model may be used to predict the performance of the system whereas the behavioural information in the model may be exploited when reasoning about the functional behaviour of the system (e.g. when finding deadlocks or when exhibiting equivalences between sub-components). In this paper we concentrate on the performance aspects of the language. A method of reasoningaboutPEPA modelsproceedsby considering the derivation graph obtained from the model using the underlying operational semantics of the PEPA language. The derivation graph is systematically reduced ...

We introduce Stochastic Process Algebras as a novel approach for the structured design and analysis of both the functional behaviour and performance characteristics of parallel and distributed systems. This is achieved by integrating performance modelling and analysis into the powerful and well investigated formal description technique of process algebras. After advocating the use of stochastic process algebras as a modelling technique we recapitulate the foundations of classical process algebras. Then we present extensions of process algebras such that the requirements of performance analysis are taken into account. Examples illustrate the methodological advantages that are gained.

In this tutorial we give an overview of the process algebra EMPA, a calculus devised in order to model and analyze features of real-world concurrent systems such as nondeterminism, priorities, probabilities and time, with a particular emphasis on performance evaluation. The purpose of this tutorial is to explain the design choices behind the development of EMPA and how the four features above interact, and to show that a reasonable trade off between the expressive power of the calculus and the complexity of its underlying theory has been achieved.

Stochastic Process Algebras have been proposed as compositional specification formalisms for performance models. In this paper, we describe a tool which aims at realising all beneficial aspects of compositional performance modelling, the TIPPtool. It incorporates methods for compositional specification as well as solution, based on state-of-the-art-techniques, and wrapped in a user-friendly graphical front end. Apart from highlighting the general benefits of the tool, we also discuss some lessons learned during development and application of the TIPPtool. A non-trivial model of a real life communication system serves as a case study to illustrate benefits and limitations.

This paper surveys the theoretical developments in the field of stochastic process algebras, process algebras where action occurrences may be subject to a delay that is determined by a random variable. A huge class of resource-sharing systems --- like large-scale computers, client-server architectures, networks --- can accurately be described using such stochastic specification formalisms.

) P. R. D'Argenio 1 , J.-P. Katoen 2 , and E. Brinksma 1 1 Dept. of Computer Science. University of Twente. P.O.Box 217. 7500 AE Enschede. The Netherlands. fdargenio,brinksmag@cs.utwente.nl 2 Lehrstuhl fur Informatik VII. University of Erlangen-Nurnberg. Martensstrasse 3. D-91058 Erlangen. Germany. katoen@informatik.uni-erlangen.de Abstract We introduce a framework to study stochastic systems, i.e. systems in which the time of occurrence of activities is a general random variable. We introduce and discuss in depth a stochastic process algebra (named ) adequate to specify and analyse those systems. In order to give semantics to , we also introduce a model that is an extension of traditional automata with clocks which are basically random variables: the stochastic automata model. We show that this model and are equally expressive. Although stochastic automata are adequate to analyse systems since they are finite objects, they are still too coarse to serve as concrete semantic...

Obtaining performance models, like Markov chains and queueing networks, for systems of significant complexity and magnitude is a di#cult task that is usually tackled using human intelligence and experience. This holds in particular for performance models of a highly irregular nature. In this paper we argue by means of a non-trivial example --- a plain-old telephone system (POTS) --- that a stochastic extension of process algebra can diminish these problems by permitting an automatic generation of Markov chains. We introduce a stochastic process algebra that separates the advance of time and action occurrences. For the sake of specification convenience we incorporate an elapse operator that allows the modular description of time constraints where delays are described by continuous phase-type distributions. Using this language we provide a formal specification of the POTS and show how a stochastic process of more than 10 7 states is automatically obtained from this system description. ...

A formal approach for modeling and analyzing concurrent systems is proposed which integrates performance characteristics in the early stages of the design process. The approach relies on both stochastically timed process algebras and stochastically timed Petri nets in order to exploit their complementary advantages. The approach is instantiated to the case of EMPA (Extended Markovian Process Algebra), introduced together with the collection of its four semantics and the notion of equivalence that are required in order to implement the approach. Finally, the case study of the alternating bit protocol is presented to illustrate the adequacy of the approach. 1

Product-form solutions in Markovian process algebra (MPA) are constructed using properties of reversed processes. The compositionality of MPAs is directly exploited, allowing a large class of hierarchically constructed systems to be solved for their state probabilities at equilibrium. The paper contains new results on both reversed stationary Markov processes as well as MPA itself and includes a mechanisable proof in MPA notation of Jackson’s theorem for product-form queueing networks. Several examples are used to illustrate the approach.

. In this paper we investigate ways of modelling communicating processes that display both nondeterministic and probabilistic behaviour. We present an operational model for a probabilistic version of CSP, and describe a number of ways of abstracting a denotational semantics from such a model, so as to represent a process by a set of probability functions, one function for each way of resolving the nondeterministic choices. We then prove an interesting--- although disappointing---result, which shows that no such denotational model can be compositional. We end by identifying a problem with the operational model, which is shared by all similar models known to us, and briefly give some indications as to how this problem might be overcome. 1. Introduction In recent years, an important problem in the study of communicating systems has been the modelling of probabilistic behaviour. This is necessary if we are to argue formally about unreliable behaviour (for example that displayed by an unre...