A Study of Formal Description and Product Validation Method for Communication Protocols

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Frotocol is a collection of predetermined rule for communication amoung computers and terminals. To maintain stable operation of a computer network, it is essential to establish a communication protocol and to confirm that all the components used in the network conform to the established protocol. For this purpose protocol validation should be made on all the products which is to be connected to the network. This is called protocol product validation.One problem for protocol. product validation is how to describe the protocol, and how to qenerate the test sequence to be used for protocol validation. Conventionaly protocol itself is described in natural language, and the description is not suited for product validation.In our study, a formal protocol description language called event sequence expression has been proposed as a expression well suited for conversion from natural language expression. We devised a conversion system of event sequence description to state transition table. Once state transition table is obtained, generation of test sequence for product valuidation is possible by a method studied by the researchers.The method has been tested on various protocols including HDLC and the ISO standard transport layer protocol. The usefulness of the approach has been proved through the applications. In addition, conversion system from LOTOS to ESTELLE has also been studied. The conversion almost corresponds to the conversion from event sequence expression to state transition tawble expression. Some additional information was found to be needed to LOTOS for complete conversion.