Experiences with the PEPA Performance Modelling Tools

The PEPA language [1] is supported by a suite of modelling tools which assist in the solution and analysis of PEPA models. The design and development of these tools have been influenced by a variety of factors, including the wishes of other users of the tools to use the language for purposes which were not anticipated by the tool designers. In consequence, the suite of PEPA tools has adapted to attempt to serve the needs of these users while continuing to support the language designers themselves. In this paper we report on our use of the PEPA tools and give some advice gained from our experiences. 1 Introduction PEPA (Performance Evaluation Process Algebra) extends classical process algebra with the capacity to assign rates to the activities which are described in an abstract model of a system. Taken together, the information about the rates of performance of activities and the definition of the outcome of performing an activity specify a stochastic process and thus PEPA is said to b..