Introduction to Input/Output Automata. Revision

摘要

The input/output automation model has recently been defined, in (LT1,LT2), as a tool for modeling concurrent and distributed discrete event systems of the sorts arising in computer science. Since its introduction, the model has been used for describing and reasoning about several different types of systems, including network resource allocation algorithms, communication algorithms, concurrent database systems, shared atomic objects, and dataflow architectures. This paper is intended to introduce researchers to the model. It is organized as follows. Section 2 contains an overview of the model. Section 3 defines the model formally and examines several illustrative examples concerning candy vending machines. Section 4 contains a second example, a leader election algorithm. Finally, Section 5 contains a survey of some of the uses that have so far been made of the model. Keywords: I/O automata, Asynchronous systems, Concurrency, Computer modeling, Data transfer. (kt)