Inducing patterns of behaviour in distributed system parts

Abstract

For an independent representation of the constraints in distributed system parts the formalism of Loosely Coupled Systems (LCSs) is recalled. The events in these structures are formally derived from symmetrical local restrictions (coupling relations). So the influence on processes in a system part which comes from the interaction with neighbourhood parts can be adequately described by a symmetrical transitional structure (slack of behaviour). A large part of synchronisation constraints can be modelled this way. In order also to represent other types of influence local excitement relations are introduced by means of which we can especially determine directions for processes in the parts and induce forces for processes to leave a given local state. The extended formal system structures are called Interaction Systems (IS). In order to show how the set of standart construction tools can adequately be extended we define an arbitration problem and model a solution by stepwise realizing the wanted interaction.