Modeling Dynamic Software Architecture Based on π-Net

Software architecture is a key aspect of the design of large-scale and complicated software system. Architecture description languages (ADLs) provide a formal specification of the architecture in terms of components and connectors and how they are composed together. As existing ADLs are difficult to describe the dynamic software architecture, a pi-net based dynamic software architecture model (DSAM) is presented, in which two complementary formalisms, namely object-oriented Petri nets (OPN) and pi-calculus, are adopted as formal theory bases. DSAM stresses on description of dynamic software architecture. Moreover, DSAM uses formal methods of Petri nets and pi-calculus to analyze, simulate and verify software architecture. Finally, to illustrate the favorable representation capability of DSAM, an example of dynamic software architecture is provided and the potential applications are pointed out