SPNP: The Stochastic Petri Net Package

Abstract

The stochastic Petri net package (SPNP) is a versatile modeling tool for the solution of generalized stochastic Petri nets (GSPN). The GSPN models are described in the input language for SPNP called C-based SPN language (CSPL). The CSPL is an extension of the C programming language with additional constructs that facilitate easy description of GSPN models. The GSPN models specified to SPNP are actually “GSPN reward models” that are based on the “Markov reward models” paradigm. This provides a powerful modeling environment for dependability analysis, performance analysis, and performability modeling. A number of important Petri net constructs like marking dependency, variable cardinality arc, and enabling functions facilitate the construction of models for complex systems.