Using the SHE method for UML-based performance modelling.

The design of complex real-time distributed hardware/software systems commonly involves evaluating the performance of several design alternatives. Early in the design process, it is therefore desirable that design methods support constructing abstract models for the purpose of analysis. Recent extensions to the Unified Modeling Language (UML) that enable specifying schedulability, performance and time provide a means to start developing such models directly after defining the concepts and requirements of a system. However, UML hampers the evaluation of performance properties because this requires constructing executable models with a modeling language that supports application of mathematical analysis techniques. In this paper, we present how the Software/Hardware Engineering (SHE) method can be used for the performance modeling of real-time distributed hardware/software systems. Starting from a UML specification, SHE enables constructing formal executable models based on the expressive modeling language POOSL (Parallel Object-Oriented Specification Language)