A general performance model interchange format

摘要

A common, XML-based interface between specifications of quantitative system models and programmed solutions is developed and illustrated with several examples. It is based on the PMIF (Performance Model Interchange Format), which allows queueing network models to be specified in XML and solved by calling any appropriate modelling tool, such as Qnap. The definition of PMIF specifications is generalised by considering more abstract collections of interacting nodes, using concepts compatible with the Reversed Compound Agent Theorem (RCAT). The interactions are more general in that they synchronise transitions in a pair of nodes rather than being restricted to describing traffic flows. The generalised nodes are characterised by the interactions in which they participate, together with their rates and reversed rates, which may be implicit. In this way, generalised queueing networks with negative customers and triggers can be incorporated and fixpoint models can also be handled uniformly through the useof symbolic variables.