Different FDT's Confronted with Different ODP-Viewpoints of the Trader

The Reference Model of Open Distributed Processing (ODP RM) is intended to create an international standard for the design and realization of open distributed systems by both ISO and CCITT. The use of formal methods in the design process of ODP systems is explicitly required. In this article the use of the Formal Description Techniques (FDT's) Z, LOTOS and SDL'92 is investigated and evaluated. These three FDT's are considered as representatives of the classes of formal techniques characterized by their structuring concepts and their underlying models, logic (set theory), process algebras and nite state machines, respectively. The ODP trader which is intended to be a standard as well is selected as case study. supported by a postgraduate grant of the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst