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Automated Validation of State-Based Client-Centric Isolation with TLA\(^+\)

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Software Engineering and Formal Methods. SEFM 2020 Collocated Workshops (SEFM 2020)

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Abstract

Clear consistency guarantees on data are paramount for the design and implementation of distributed systems. When implementing distributed applications, developers require approaches to verify the data consistency guarantees of an implementation choice. Crooks et al. define a state-based and client-centric model of database isolation. This paper formalizes this state-based model in , reproduces their examples and shows how to model check runtime traces and algorithms with this formalization. The formalized model in enables semi-automatic model checking for different implementation alternatives for transactional operations and allows checking of conformance to isolation levels. We reproduce examples of the original paper and confirm the isolation guarantees of the combination of the well-known 2-phase locking and 2-phase commit algorithms. Using model checking this formalization can also help finding bugs in incorrect specifications. This improves feasibility of automated checking of isolation guarantees in synthesized synchronization implementations and it provides an environment for experimenting with new designs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ING Bank, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Tim Soethout

  2. Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Tim Soethout, Tijs van der Storm & Jurgen J. Vinju

  3. University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Tijs van der Storm

  4. Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Jurgen J. Vinju

Authors
  1. Tim Soethout
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  2. Tijs van der Storm
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  3. Jurgen J. Vinju
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tim Soethout .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Loek Cleophas

  2. CNR-ISTI, Pisa, Italy

    Mieke Massink

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Soethout, T., van der Storm, T., Vinju, J.J. (2021). Automated Validation of State-Based Client-Centric Isolation with TLA\(^+\). In: Cleophas, L., Massink, M. (eds) Software Engineering and Formal Methods. SEFM 2020 Collocated Workshops. SEFM 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12524. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67220-1_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67220-1_4

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