Method and Case Study of Model Checking Concurrent Systems That Use Unbounded Timestamps

Parallel and distributed algorithms, including those for fault tolerance, often use timestamps to coordinate the behaviors of processes. These algorithms are hard to correctly design and often subject to subtle design faults. Model checking, which is a state exploration-based verification method, ha...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings (IEEE Pacific Rim International Symposium on Dependable Computing) pp. 261 - 266
Main Authors: Nakano, Shinya, Tsuchiya, Tatsuhiro
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Published: IEEE 01.01.2017
Subjects:
Algorithm design and analysis
bakery algorithm
data abstraction
Distributed algorithms
Electronic mail
Fault tolerance
Fault tolerant systems
Information science
Model checking
SPIN
timestamp
ISSN:2473-3105
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Parallel and distributed algorithms, including those for fault tolerance, often use timestamps to coordinate the behaviors of processes. These algorithms are hard to correctly design and often subject to subtle design faults. Model checking, which is a state exploration-based verification method, has been very successful in finding design faults in many practical systems. However model checking of timestamp-based algorithms is difficult when the values of timestamps are not bounded, because then the state space is infinite. This paper addresses the problem of infinite state space by proposing a data abstraction technique for timestamps. This technique transforms the infinite-state algorithm to a finite-state abstract model which simulates the original algorithm. The applicability of this approach is demonstrated through a case study where Lamport's bakery algorithm is verified in the absence and presence of process failures.
ISSN:2473-3105
DOI:10.1109/PRDC.2017.50