A generic and executable model for the specification and validation of distributed behaviors

An executable model based approach to validate distributed behavior specifications is presented. Be-haviors are simple rewrite rules on data instantiated according to a given information model. They are triggered by events such as operations invoked on computational interfaces. The model is generic in the sense that it does not make any assumption about the information and computation models used, i.e. frameworks such as the OSI Systems Management Architecture, CORBA or SNMP can be adapted. To ensure usability, the execution environment provides for (i) a visual operational semantics of the proposed behavior specification language, and (ii) for dynamic debugging facilities. In addition, a Scheme programming environment is shown to be a valuable option to support the implementation, in particular for dynamic debugging purposes.