Specifying a Distributed Snapshot Algorithm as a Meta-Program and Model Checking it at Meta-Level

Abstract

The paper proposes a new approach to model checking Chandy-Lamport Distributed Snapshot Algorithm (CLDSA). The essential of the approach is that CLDSA is specified as a meta-program in Maude such that the meta-program takes a specification of an underlying distributed system (UDS) and generates the specification of the UDS on which CLDSA is superimposed (UDS-CLDSA). To model check that a UDS-CLDSA enjoys a desired property, it suffices that human users specify the UDS for the proposed approach, while human users need to specify the UDS-CLDSA for the existing approach for each UDS. Since the proposed approach conducts model checking at meta-level, it produces a counterexample if a UDS-CLDSA does not enjoy the property, while the existing approach does not. Our method specifying CLDSA as a meta-program can be applied to formal specification of the class of distributed algorithms that are superimposed on UDSs.