Modeling and Analyzing the Software Architecture of a Communication Protocol Using SAM

SAM is a general framework for modeling and analyzing software architectures. In this paper, we apply SAM to model and analyze a popular alternating-bit communication protocol. To compare with other existing formalization of this communication protocol and to show the salient features of SAM, we provide two specifications of the communication protocol — one without a timer and one with a timer. Furthermore we explore two different translation approaches using the model checking language SMV, and compare their effectiveness. We provide some general rules, including rules to deal with timing issues, to translate predicate transition nets into SMV specifications so that automatic verification of systems properties through model checking can be done.