PARSE-DAT: An integrated environment for the design and analysis of dynamic software architectures

Robust distributed software infrastructures such as DCE and CORBA are becoming widely used to aid in building complex distributed systems. However, the engineering of distributed software is a difficult task since there are many concurrency and correctness issues that need to be considered. PARSE-DAT (PARallel Software Engineering - Design Analysis Tool) is an integrated environment that enables the design and analysis of dynamic software architectures. Architects construct software architectures using a set of well-defined graphical notation called Dynamic PARSE Process Graph Notation (Dynamic PARSE-PGN) in the graph editing environment (PARSE-DT). These software designs can then be translated into the corresponding pi-Calculus model, and subsequently analysed for structural deadlock in the analysis/verification environment (PARSE-AT). This paper firstly presents the Dynamic PARSE design notation and methodology, followed by the PARSE-DAT environment. A sample design constructed and formally analysed in PARSE-DAT is also presented.