Function-based methodology to model communication protocols for performance evaluation

The paper describes a methodology based on the function concept, as defined in the OSI Reference Model, to model protocol entities in order to assess their performance while being used in a communication network. This concept provides a high degree of flexibility to model protocol entities, because it allows the modeler to combine some functions needed to build a given protocol which will provide a particular level of performance. The functions of a protocol entity are structured inside a library of functions, and are mainly related by means of the precedence relation