ETS - a performance prediction tool for protocols specified in FDT Estelle

Abstract

With the advent of formal specification languages, it has become possible to represent complex communication protocols formally and unambiguously. Presence of automated tools for protocol specification and verification has made inroads for the wide-spread use of formal languages. One of the often neglected issues in protocol development activities centered around formal languages is the performance efficiency of the protocol under given network implementation. Many performance simulation tools are available, but they either do not use standard formal languages for protocol specification or lack a comprehensive performance prediction capability. In this paper we present a software tool which unifies formal protocol specification and performance prediction and thus enables protocols specified in FDT Estelle to be simulated for performance on a given network configuration which include point-to-point networks, common bus ethernet, ring and multihop static and mobile packet radio networks. It allows fine tuning of an otherwise correct protocol to improve its efficiency without the actual implementation and thus it helps in building rapid and efficient prototypes.