Statenets - an alternative modelling mechanism for performance analysis

Abstract

Statecharts were developed by Harel to specify complex reactive systems. Statecharts proved to be rich in modelling power and convenience [9] and well suited to mechanical implementation. However, the semantic definition of statecharts is complex.so that little work has been done on the mathematical aspects of statecharts. This paper informally introduces a simplified version of statecharts, called statenets, with a stochastic extension. The stochastic statenet is a step towards combining the modelling convenience of the statechart with the analysis capabilities already developed for stochastic Petri nets. The statenet is therefore suitable for both verification and performance analysis purposes, while retaining reasonable modelling convenience. The paper contains an example of designing a system with the statenet, and gives an informal description of analysis methods for the statenet.