The RPC-Memory Case Study: A Synopsis

The RPC Memory speci cation problem was proposed by Broy and Lamport as a case study in the formal design of distributed and concurrent systems The idea was to use it as a basis for comparing various approaches to formal speci ca tion re nement and veri cation Various preliminary solutions were presented and discussed during a workshop at Schloss Dagstuhl Germany in September Authors were then given the opportunity to revise their speci cations to re ect the discussions at the seminar An extensive refereeing process ensured and authors were encouraged to discuss their solutions with the referees This volume contains fteen solutions to the RPC Memory problem that resulted from this process The formalisms that underly the speci cations re ect di erent schools of system speci cation including Petri nets temporal and higher order logics various formats of transition systems or automata and stream based approaches supporting various degrees of formalized or computer assisted veri cation The contributors were free to solve only those aspects of the problem that they considered particularly important or omit aspects that could not be adequately represented in the chosen formalism Section of this introductory overview reviews the speci cation problem discussing its structure and the problems posed to the participants In section we attempt to classify the solutions contained in this volume We indicate which parts of the problem have been addressed and what we believe to be the key points of each solution This would have been impossible without the help of the referees who supplied us with excellent overviews and appraisals In fact this section contains literal quotes from the referee reports and we would like to think of our contribution as mostly redactorial trying to ensure a common format and uniform criteria of classi cation In order to maintain the anonymity of the individual referees we do not attribute the quotes we make A list of all referees involved in the edition of this volume is included separately We conclude in section with a summary of some of the lessons that we have learned from this case study This article does not attempt to provide an in depth analysis of the solutions to the case study because we have contributed solutions ourselves it would have been di cult to ensure a truly impartial assessment of the other contribu tions Besides such an analysis would have taken more time and energy than