Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Standardized protocol interfaces

1993; Wiley; Volume: 23; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1002/spe.4380230703

1097-024X

Gerard J. Holzmann,

Embedded Systems Design Techniques

Abstract A traditional protocol implementation typically consists of at least two distinct parts, a sender and a receiver. Each part runs on a distinct machine, with the implementation provided by a local expert. At best, the two machines are of the same type and the protocol implementations are provided by the same person. More likely, however, the machines are not of the same type and the implementations of the two halves of the protocol are provided by two different people, working from an often loosely defined protocol specification. It seems almost unavoidable that the two implementations are not quite compatible. In this paper we consider an alternative technique. With this method, one of the two implementors can design, formally validate, and implement all the relevant protocol parts, including those parts that are to be executed remotely. Each communication channel is now terminated on the receiving side, by a single standard protocol interface, which can be called a universal asynchronous protocol interface, or UAPI. Though it is likely that the UAPI is most efficiently implemented in hardware, it can also trivially run as a software module, e.g. under a standard UNIX® operating system (in our case under 10th Edition Research Unix). This paper introduces the concept of a UAPI and explains how the sample software controller was constructed.