In: International Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer, Vol. 2, No. 2: Special section on coloured Petri nets, pages 133-143. 1998. ISSN 1433-2779; available at http://sttt.cs.uni-dortmund.de/.
Abstract: We present an application of colored Petri nets to the modeling of a software architecture. Our work demonstrates how architectural modeling can be used to control properties of industrial scale products and product families. The new software architecture of a mobile phone family is modeled by colored Petri nets and analyzed using the Design/CPN tool. The model describes the execution architecture and allows us to analyze both the time and space performance of the software system. Our experience shows that a special purpose model can be constructed for large systems also and that this model predicts system properties accurately enough to be useful. The insight this gave us into the internal operation of the software system together with the estimates of its performance have guided us through the early phases of architectural design. We continue to maintain the model and expect it to be a valuable tool in configuring different product family members.
Keywords: Software architecture - Execution archi-tecture - Modeling - Colored Petri nets - Performance.