Runtime verification past experiences and future projections

Abstract

The paper provides an overview of the work performed by the authors since the year 2000 in the field of runtime verification. Runtime verification is the discipline of analyzing program/system executions using rigorous methods. The discipline covers such topics as specification-based monitoring, where single executions are checked against formal specifications; predictive runtime analysis, where properties about a system are predicted/inferred from single (good) executions; fault protection, where monitors actively protect a running system against errors; specification mining from execution traces; visualization of execution traces; and to be fully general: computation of any interesting information from execution traces. The paper attempts to draw lessons learned from this work, and to project expectations for the future of the field.