Model-based protocol specification

Abstract

We propose a holistic Model-Based Protocol Specification (MBPS) framework. Standards, procedures, and protocols are important anchors for interconnected systems: they facilitate the connectivity of billions of devices around the world, commodify advanced technologies and solutions, and enable efficient services involving trillions of transactions in aviation, medicine, e-commerce, transportation, infrastructure, and other domains. Domain protocols allow for conventional interactions within a domain among ecosystem entities and humans (eg, airline ticketing, financial transactions, etc). Protocol specifications must be formal, consistent, and verifiable. Nevertheless, most current standard protocols are text-based, unverifiable, and often inconsistent with themselves and with other standards. Text-based standards are difficult to manage, track, control, and adopt. MBPS includes three critical enablers: a modeling language, a modeling process, and a model-supported standardization process. This paper employs Object-Process Methodology (OPM), a model-based systems engineering framework, endorsed as ISO-19450, for modeling and simulation of the generic protocol specification process and for two examples: (a) a Kerberos authentication protocol revision based on a previous Kerberos model and on a recently discovered vulnerability and (b) a domain-specific Publish—Subscribe protocol application for selective information distribution.