A design and modeling environment to develop real-time, distributed software systems

Abstract

This paper presents the general structure of a design and modeling environment for real-time, parallel/distributed software systems. It is provided for the designer to cope with different modeling and analysis methods during the different design stages. It captures three trends of concerns in the design of a real-time, distributed system: functionality, performance and distributed aspects. An object-oriented database and a plan generator are two core components. The database is used to organize data so that they can be easily retrieved and easily reused for further study, reference and reporting. More significantly, it is used to integrate the dependencies and relationships between different modeling techniques and performance evaluation tools. The plan generator has a role of analyzing plan development,recommending plan modifications, suggesting plan modeling, and validating plans. It provides the ability to handle incomplete and uncertainty information, the ability to handle update propagation, and the ability to make more intelligent design decision.

This work was partially supported by the National Science Foundation and the Naval Underwater System Center through grant No. CCR 8701839 and by the University of Connecticut Research Foundation through grant No. 506-35-066.