Multifaceted distributed systems specification using processes and event synchronization

A new approach to modelling distributed systems is presented. It uses sequential processes and event synchronization as the major building blocks and is able to capture the functionality, architecture, scheduling policies, and performance attributes of a distributed system. The approach is meant to provide the foundation for a uniform incremental strategy for verifying both logical and performance properties of distributed systems. In addition, this approach draws together work on performance evaluation, resource allocation, and verification of concurrent processes by reducing some problems from the first two areas to equivalent problems in the third. A language called CSPS (an extension of Hoare's CSP) is used in the illustration of the approach. Employing CSP as a base allows modelled systems to be verified using techniques already developed for verifying CSP programs