Language-based performance prediction for distributed and mobile systems

We present a framework for performance prediction of distributed and mobile systems. We rely on process calculi and their structural operational semantics. The dynamic behaviour is described through transition systems whose transitions are labelled by encodings of their proofs that we then map into stochastic processes, we enhance related works by allowing general continuous distributions resorting to a notion of enabling between transitions. We also discuss how the number of resources available affects the overall model. Finally, we introduce a notion of bisimulation that takes stochastic information into account and prove it to be a congruence. When only exponential distributions are of interest our equivalence induces a lumpable partition on the underlying Markov process. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science (USA).