Formal derivation of concurrent programs: an example from industry

The formal derivation of an implementation of the I/O (input/output) subsystem portion of an existing operating system is presented. The I/O subsystem is responsible for allocating I/O resources such as tapes, disks, I/O channels in response to requests from user processes. The derivation employs the UNITY methodology which captures the concurrent interaction of the I/O subsystem with its environment. The verified resource allocation algorithm that results from the derivation has been used as part of a high-level design by software engineers implementing the I/O subsystem. As the largest application to date of the UNITY methodology, the derivation illustrates a number of techniques for organizing large specifications and proofs.<
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