Axel HEIN
Zum Hahnenschrei 2
D-69168 Wiesloch, Germany
Tel.: +32 16 32-18-18
Axel.Hein@computer.org
Mario DAL CIN
IMMD III, University of Erlangen-Nuernberg
Martensstr. 3
D-91058 Erlangen, Germany
Tel.: +49 9131 85-7003
dalcin@immd3.informatik.uni-erlangen.de
ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation
vol. 8, no. 4 (October 1998)
Paper (PostScript 380 KB)
Paper (GZipped PostScript
109 KB)
Papers only available to TOMACS subscribers and others authorized to access the ACM Digital Library.
Computer systems are becoming more and more a part of our daily life; business and industry rely on their
service, and the health of human beings depends on their correct functioning. Computer systems used
for critical tasks have to be carefully designed and tested during the early design stage, the prototype phase,
and the operational life. Methods and tools are required to support and facilitate this vital task.
In this paper, we tackle the issue of system-level performance and dependability analysis of fault-tolerant scalable
computer systems. A modeling methodology called "Conjoint Simulation" is presented, which is based on
the partitioning of the system model and the combination of several modeling techniques. Object-oriented model
construction and process-based simulation are applied for architecture and workload modeling, while timed Petri
nets are the core modeling technique to represent the failure scenarios and repair policies. Splitting the overall
model and exploiting appropriate modeling techniques ease the development, maintenance, and extensi bility of large-scale
and complex simulation models. Furthermore, techniques are provided for hierarchical model construction, object-oriented
workload modeling, and simulated error injection in order to perform combined performance and dependability analysis.
object-oriented modeling, process-based simulation, hierarchical model design, fault-tolerant and large-scale
computer systems, timed Petri nets