An Integrated Approach to Improving Design-Time and Run-Time Confidence

University Of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA

Investigators

Abstract

Proposal Number: CCR-9988409 PI: Lee, Insup Co-PI: Sokolsky, Oleg University of Pennsylvania An Integrated Approach to Improving Design-Time and Run-Time Confidence The proposed research addresses two ways to improve confidence in software systems: design-time analysis and run-time monitoring. The design-time analysis is to verify design specifications with respect to requirements, whereas the run-time monitoring is to assure that an implementation is behaving as required. The proposed research will improve design-time analysis by means of domain-specific extensions to analysis techniques and tools. An extension for a chosen domain will be based on specification patterns typical of the domain, and on domain-specific abstraction mechanisms. Furthermore, the design-time analysis approach will be integrated with the run-time monitoring and checking approach. Since the success of this integration work will depend on the characteristics of specific domains, the identification of such characteristics will be part of the proposed work. The proposed work will be performed in the context of framework for end-to-end system development of high confidence software, based on a suite of methods and tools for the specification, analysis, development, testing, prototyping, simulation and monitoring. The integration of design-time analysis and run-time monitoring is the key novel aspect of the proposed work. The proposed work will be evaluated on a collection of applications chosen to represent domains requiring high confidence and real-time requirements, such as embedded systems and electronic commerce systems.