Markov reward approach to performability and reliability analysis

Performability and reliability modeling techniques and tools have been an area of intensive research activity in the last ten years. We present a unified mathematical framework for performability and reliability models in terms of Markov reward models. The framework presented is not the only one available for performability analysis, but it is the most commonly used one. To complete our exposition, we describe two modeling software packages: SHARPE (Symbolic Hierarchical Automated Reliability/Performance Evaluator) and SPNP (Stochastic Petri Net Package)