USING VDM TO SPECIFY MANAGED OBJECT RELATIONSHIPS

In [1,2], work on applying VDM to the formal specification of OSI management interfaces was reported. VDM was applied to the specification of the behaviour of managed objects-an aspect not adequately addressed by the current OSI Management standards. This work focused on the behaviour of individual managed objects. However, managed objects do not exist in isolation-their behaviour is affected by their relationships with other managed objects. These behavioural dependencies can be more complex than individual object behaviour, further motivating the need for precise and unambiguous specifications. This paper illustrates the application of VDM to formally specifying relationships among managed objects using two related case studies: the pool and group relationships.