@InProceedings{GreenAbdallah02,
  title =        "{P}erformance {A}nalysis and {B}ehaviour {T}uning for {O}ptimisation of {C}ommunicating {S}ystems",
  author=        "Green, Mark and Abdallah,  Ali E.",
  editor=        "Pascoe,  James S. and Loader,  Roger J. and Sunderam,  Vaidy S.",
  pages =        "181--190",
  booktitle=     "{C}ommunicating {P}rocess {A}rchitectures 2002",
  isbn=          "1 58603 268 2",
  year=          "2002",
  month=         "sep",
  abstract=      "Improving performance is the main driving force behind the
     use of parallel systems. Models for performance evaluation
     and techniques for performance optimisation are crucial for
     effectively exploiting the computational power of parallel
     systems. This paper focuses on methods for evaluating the
     performance of parallel applications built from components
     using the software architecture methodology. Minor
     differences in the low-level behaviour of functionally
     equivalent processing elements can have a dramatic effect
     upon the performance of the overall system; this confounds
     attempts to predict performance at any step prior to
     implementation. VisualNets is a tool supporting the
     construction and graphical manipulation of interacting
     systems built from components. It makes use of
     specifications in the formal method CSP, which enables the
     relevant component behaviours and the linkage between
     components to be concisely described. The tool allows the
     behaviour of the whole system over time, and the patterns of
     interaction between the components, to be visualised through
     graphical animation. The graphical display produced
     facilitates the analysis and evaluation of performance, and
     highlights areas where performance could be improved via
     better utilisation of parallel resources. VisualNets also
     allows the timing properties of the components and of the
     architecture that underlies them to be changed, to represent
     different component implementations or platform
     configurations. A case study, based on the dual pipeline
     architecture, is presented to show how the graphical
     animation capability of VisualNets can be used, firstly to
     evaluate performance, and secondly to guide the development
     of more efficient versions of the parallel system."
}