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On the realizability of collaborative services

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Abstract

This paper considers compositional specifications of services using UML 2 collaborations, activity and interaction diagrams, and addresses the realizability problem for such specifications: given a global specification, can we construct a set of communicating system components whose joint behavior is precisely the specified global behavior? We approach the problem by looking at how the sequencing of collaborations and local actions may be described using UML activity diagrams. We identify the realizability problems for each of the sequencing operators, such as strong and weak sequence, choice of alternatives, loops, and concurrency. The nature of these realizability problems and possible solutions are discussed. This brings a new look at already known problems: we show that given some conditions, certain problems can already be detected at an abstract level, without looking at the detailed interactions of the collaborations, provided that we know the components that initiate and terminate the different collaborations.

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Author notes

  1. Humberto Nicolás Castejón

    Present address: Telenor ASA, Trandheim, Norway

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Information Technology and Engineering (SITE), University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada

    Gregor von Bochmann

  2. Department of Telematics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

    Humberto Nicolás Castejón & Rolv Bræk

Authors
  1. Humberto Nicolás Castejón
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  2. Gregor von Bochmann
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  3. Rolv Bræk
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Correspondence to Humberto Nicolás Castejón.

Additional information

Communicated by Dr. Heiko Dörr.

A preliminary version of this paper appeared in the proceedings of the 14th Asia-Pacific Soft. Eng. Conf. (APSEC’07), IEEE Computer Society Press, pp. 73–80, 2007. This work was partially supported by a grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

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Castejón, H.N., von Bochmann, G. & Bræk, R. On the realizability of collaborative services. Softw Syst Model 12, 597–617 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-011-0216-x

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