Protoplasm: Automating checks for protocol compatibility

Pervasive networking provides ever-growing opportunities for collaboration among computer systems operating in different domains. These systems may "speak" in their own protocols and data formats; and determining whether two speak in compatible terms can be difficult. Since manual review is costly, time-consuming, and error-prone, the opportunities for cross-domain collaboration can be fully realized only if large parts of the problem of detecting and compensating for incompatibilities can be automated. Analysis and synthesis algorithms have been developed, but they can be applied only if all the relevant protocols have been formally specified-i.e., given precise mathematical descriptions. ATC-NY, Architecture Technology Corporation, and the University of Minnesota-with extensive experience in both networking and applied formal methods-will collaborate to develop Protoplasm, a tool suite for analyzing and ensuring the compatibility of cross-domain protocols that is centered on the key enabling technology: automated support for creating and validating protocol specifications. Protoplasm will use the Play-Engine to capture requirements by "scenario-based programming" and to explore and validate specifications. Protoplasm will analyze the compatibility of protocols and support conformance-checking by generating monitors that evaluate tests of implementations against protocol specifications and by generating input for BLAST, which can verify source code by static analysis.