Abstract. Runtime verification is the process of checking a property on a trace of events produced by the execution of a computational system. Runtime verification techniques have recently focused on parametric specifications where events take data values as parameters. These techniques exist on a spectrum inhabited by both efficient and expressive techniques. These characteristics are usually shown to be conflicting -in state-of-the-art solutions, efficiency is obtained at the cost of loss of expressiveness and vice-versa. To seek a solution to this conflict we explore a new point on the spectrum by defining an alternative runtime verification approach. We introduce a new formalism for concisely capturing expressive specifications with parameters. Our technique is more expressive than the currently most efficient techniques while at the same time allowing for optimizations.

Abstract. The aim of this chapter is to act as a primer for those wanting to learn about Runtime Verification (RV). We start by providing an overview of the main specification languages used for RV. We then introduce the standard terminology necessary to describe the monitoring problem, covering the pragmatic issues of monitoring and instrumentation, and discussing extensively the monitorability problem.

The first international Competition on Runtime Verification (CRV) was held in September 2014, in Toronto, Canada, as a satellite event of the 14th international conference on Runtime Verification (RV'14). The event was organized in three tracks: (1) offline monitoring, (2) online monitoring of C programs, and (3) online monitoring of Java programs. In this paper, we report on the phases and rules, a description of the participating teams and their submitted benchmark, the (full) results, as well as the lessons learned from the competition.

Abstract. Runtime monitoring is the process of checking whether an execution trace of a running system satisfies a given specification. For this to be effective, monitors which run trace-checking algorithms must be efficient so that they introduce minimal computational overhead. We present the MARQ tool for monitoring properties expressed as Quantified Event Automata. This formalism generalises previous automata-based specification methods. MARQ extends the established parametric trace slicing technique and incorporates existing techniques for indexing and garbage collection as well as a new technique for optimising runtime monitoring: structural specialisations where monitors are generated based on structural characteristics of the monitored property. MARQ recently came top in two tracks in the 1st international Runtime Verification competition, showing that MARQ is one of the most efficient existing monitoring tools for both offline monitoring of trace logs and online monitoring of running systems.

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