Complementing role models with Petri nets in studying asynchronous data communications

Simpson’s role model method was designed for the analysis of synchronisation-free data communication mechanisms employing shared memory and has been shown to be especially useful for the representation and analyses of data freshness properties. Previously published analyses using the role model method have employed proprietary state space search techniques developed by Simpson. In this paper, a formal definition of role models is given and a way of representing role models using Petri nets is presented. Potential advantages of analysing systems using the role model method complemented with Petri net techniques are demonstrated with a case study of data freshness properties of a data communication algorithm.