Protocol verification using database technology

Abstract

We describe a novel application of database technologies in communications networks: protocol verification on a parallel database machine. We introduce an approach to protocol verification that exploits database algorithms executing on a commercially available, parallel architecture called a hypercube multicomputer. With this approach, we seek to achieve the high degree of computational parallelism necessary to explore rapidly the global-state space of even very complex protocols, significantly reducing the time required to verify a protocol and allowing formal verification to be included as part of the process of protocol design. Our approach is based on the relational database algorithms for a hypercube system presented in [3], [4] and the relational algebra approach to verification of finite-state protocols presented in [17], [HI.