Skip to main content
Log in

Modeling and verification of a telecommunication application using live sequence charts and the Play-Engine tool

  • Special Section Paper
  • Published:
Software & Systems Modeling Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

We apply the scenario-based approach to modeling, via the language of live sequence charts (LSCs) and the Play-Engine tool to a real-world complex telecommunication service, \({\tt Depannage}\). It allows a user to call for help from a doctor, the fire brigade, a car maintenance service, etc. These kinds of services are built on top of an embedded platform, using both new and existing service components, and their complexity stems from their distributed architecture, the various time constraints they entail, and their rapidly evolving underlying systems. A well known problem in this class of telecommunication applications is that of feature interaction, whereby a new feature might cause problems in the execution of existing features. Our approach provides a methodology for high-level modeling of telecommunication applications that can help in detecting feature interaction at early development stages. We exhibit the results of applying the methodology to the specification, animation and formal verification of the Depannage service.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Aggoun I. and Combes P. (1997). Observers in the SCE and the SEE to Detect and Resolve Services Interactions. IOS Press, Amsterdam

    Google Scholar 

  2. Altia Design & Altia FacePlate, web page http://www.altia.com

  3. Alur R., Holzmann G. and Peled D. (1996). An analyzer for message sequence charts. Softw. Concepts Tools 17(2): 70–77

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  4. Amyot D. and Eberlein A. (2003). An evaluation of scenario notations and construction approaches for telecommunication systems development. Telecommun. Syst. J. 24(1): 61–94

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Bunker, A., Gopalakrishnan, G.: Verifying a VCI bus interface model using an LSC-based specification. In: Ehrig, H., Kramer, B.J., Ertas, A. (eds.) Proceedings of the 6th Biennial World Conference on Integrated Design and Process Technology, pp. 1–12 (2002)

  6. Bunker, A., Slind, K.: Property generation for live sequence charts. Technical report, University of Utah (2003)

  7. Castanet, R., Cavalli, A., Combes, P., Laurencot, P., MacKaya, M., Mederreg, A., Monin, W., Zaidi, F.: A multi-service and multi-protocol validation platform-experimentation results. In: TestCom, Lect. Notes in Comp. Sci., vol. 2978, pp. 17–32. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)

  8. Clarke E., Grumberg O. and Peled D. (1999). Model Checking. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  9. Combes P., Dubois F., Monin W. and Vincent D. (2003). Looking for better integration of design and performance engineering. In: Reed, R. (eds) SDL Forum, Lect. Notes in Comp. Sci., vol. 2708, pp 1–17. Springer, Heidelberg

    Google Scholar 

  10. Combes, P., Harel, D., Kugler, H.: Supplementary material on the depannage application. http://research.microsoft.com/~hkugler/Depannage/

  11. Combes, P., Harel, D., Kugler, H.: Modeling and Verification of a Telecommunication Application using Live Sequence Charts and the Play-Engine Tool. In: Proceedings of 3rd International Symposium on Automated Technology for Verification and Analysis (ATVA ’05), Lect. Notes in Comp. Sci., vol. 3707, pp. 414–428. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

  12. Damm, W., Harel, D.: LSCs: Breathing life into message sequence charts. Formal Methods Syst. Des. 19(1), 45–80 (2001). In: Preliminary version appeared in Proceedings of 3rd IFIP International Conference on Formal Methods for Open Object-Based Distributed Systems (FMOODS’99)

  13. Damm, W., Toben, T., Westphal, B.: On the expressive power of live sequence charts. In: Program Analysis and Compilation, Lect. Notes in Comp. Sci., vol. 4444, pp. 225–246. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)

  14. Damm W. and Westphal B. (2005). Live and let die: LSC-based verification of UML-models. Sci. Comput. Program. 55(1–3): 117–159

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  15. e-SIM , web page http://www.e-sim.com/home

  16. Macromedia Flash, web page http://www.adobe.com/products/flash

  17. Harel, D., Kugler, H.: Synthesizing state-based object systems from LSC specifications. Int. J. Found. Comput. Sci. (IJFCS) 13(1), 5–51 (2002). (Also, Proceedings of 5th International Conference on Implementation and Application of Automata (CIAA 2000), July 2000, Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer, Heidelberg, 2000)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Harel, D., Kugler, H., Marelly, R., Pnueli, A.: Smart play-out of behavioral requirements. In: Proceedings of 4th International Conference on Formal Methods in Computer-Aided Design (FMCAD’02), Portland, Oregon, Lect. Notes in Comp. Sci., vol. 2517, pp. 378–398 (2002). Also available as Tech. Report MCS02-08, The Weizmann Institute of Science

  19. Harel, D., Kugler, H., Pnueli, A.: Smart play-out extended: time and forbidden elements. In: International Conference on Quality Software (QSIC04), pp. 2–10. IEEE Press, New York (2004)

  20. Harel, D., Kugler, H., Pnueli, A.: Synthesis revisited: generating statechart models from scenarios-based requirements. In: Formal Methods in Software and System Modeling, Lect. Notes in Comp. Sci., vol. 3393, pp. 309–324. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

  21. Harel, D., Kugler, H., Weiss, G.: Some methodological observations resulting from experience using LSCs and the play-in/play-out approach. In: Proceedings of scenarios: models, algorithms and tools, Lect. Notes in Comp. Sci., vol. 3466, pp. 26–42. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

  22. Harel, D., Maoz, S.: Assert and negate revisited: modal semantics for UML sequence diagrams. Softw. Syst. Model. (SoSyM) (2007) (to appear). In: Early version in 5th International Workshop on Scenarios and State Machines: Models, Algorithms and Tools (SCESM’06)

  23. Harel, D., Marelly, R.: Playing with time: on the specification and execution of time-enriched LSCs. In: Proceedings of 10th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems (MASCOTS’02). Fort Worth, Texas (2002)

  24. Harel, D.,Marelly,R.: Come,Let’s Play: Scenario-Based Programming Using LSCs and the Play-Engine. Springer, (2003)

  25. Harel D. and Marelly R. (2003). Specifying and executing behavioral requirements: the play in/play-out approach. Softw. Syst. Model. (SoSyM) 2(2): 82–107

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Harel, D., Thiagarajan, P.: Message sequence charts. In: UML for Real: Design of Embedded Real-time Systems (2003)

  27. Koskimies K. and Makinen E. (1994). Automatic synthesis of state machines from trace diagrams. Softwa. Practice Exp. 24(7): 643–658

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Koskimies, K., Mannisto, T., Systa, T., Tuomi, J.: SCED: a tool for dynamic modeling of object systems. Technical Report A-1996-4, University of Tampere (1996)

  29. Krüger, I., Grosu, R., Scholz, P., Broy, M.: From MSCs to statecharts. In: Proceedings of International Workshop on Distributed and Parallel Embedded Systems (DIPES’98), pp. 61–71. Kluwer, Dordrecht (1999)

  30. Kugler, H., Harel, D., Pnueli, A., Lu, Y., Bontemps, Y.: Temporal logic for scenario-based specifications. In: Halbwachs, N., Zuck, L.D. (eds.) Proceedings 11th International Conference on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems (TACAS’05), Lect. Notes in Comp. Sci., vol. 3440, pp. 445–460. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

  31. Leue, S., Mehrmann, L., Rezai, M.: Synthesizing ROOM models from message sequence chart specifications. Technical Report 98-06, University of Waterloo (1998)

  32. Logrippo L. and Amyot D. (2003). Feature Interactions in Telecommunications and Software Systems VII. IOS Press, Amsterdam

    Google Scholar 

  33. Marelly, R., Harel, D., Kugler, H.: Multiple instances and symbolic variables in executable sequence charts. In: Proceedings of 17th Annual ACM Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages and Applications (OOPSLA’02), pp. 83–100. Seattle, WA (2002)

  34. ITU-TS Recommendation Z.120 (11/99): MSC 2000. ITU-TS, Geneva (1999)

  35. OMEGA—Correct development of real-time embedded systems. http://www-omega.imag.fr/

  36. Reiff-Marganiec S. (2005). Feature Interactions in Telecommunications and Software Systems VIII. IOS Press, Amsterdam

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  37. Schinz, I., Toben, T., Westphal, B.: The Rhapsody UML Verification Environment. In: 2nd International Conference on Software Engineering and Formal Methods. IEEE Computer Society Press, New York (2004)

  38. Sengupta, B., Cleaveland, R.: Triggered message sequence charts. In: Proceedings of the 10th ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on Foundations of Software Engineering, pp. 167–176. ACM Press, New York (2002)

  39. Uchitel S., Kramer J. and Magee J. (2004). Incremental elaboration of scenario-based specifications and behavior models using implied scenarios. ACM Trans. Softw. Eng. Methods 13(1): 37–85

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. UML: Documentation of the unified modeling language (UML) (2007). Available from the Object Management Group (OMG), http://www.omg.org

  41. Wang, T., Roychoudhury, A., Yap, R., Choudhary, S.: Symbolic execution of behavioral requirements. In: Jayaraman, B. (ed.) 6th International Symposium on Practical Aspects of Declarative Languages, (PADL 2004), Lect. Notes in Comp. Sci., vol. 3057, pp. 178–192. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)

  42. Whittle, J., Saboo, J., Kwan, R.: From scenarios to code: an air traffic control case study. In: 25th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2003), pp. 490–495. IEEE Computer Society, New York (2003)

  43. Whittle, J., Schumann, J.: Generating statechart designs from scenarios. In: 22nd International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2000), pp. 314–323. ACM Press, New York (2000)

  44. Z.120 ITU-TS Recommendation Z.120: Message Sequence Chart (MSC). ITU-TS, Geneva (1996)

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hillel Kugler.

Additional information

Communicated by Dr. Susanne Graf.

This research was supported by the European Commission project OMEGA (IST-2001-33522) “Correct Development of Real-Time Embedded Systems”. During this project, the third author was at the Weizmann Institute of Science and later at New York University. A Preliminary version [11] has appeared in ATVA’05.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Combes, P., Harel, D. & Kugler, H. Modeling and verification of a telecommunication application using live sequence charts and the Play-Engine tool. Softw Syst Model 7, 157–175 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-007-0069-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-007-0069-5

Keywords

Navigation