TimeNET: evaluation tool for non-Markovian stochastic Petri nets

Stochastic Petri nets (SPNs) are well suited for the model-based performance and dependability evaluation. Most commonly, the firing times of the transitions are exponentially distributed, leading to an underlying continuous-time Markov chain. In order to increase the modeling power, several classes of non-Markovian SPNs were defined, in which the transitions may fire after a non-exponentially distributed firing time. TimeNET (Timed Petri Net Evaluation Tool) is a software package for the modeling and evaluation of SPNs in which the firing times of the transitions may be exponentially distributed, deterministic, or more generally distributed. To express general distributions, expolynomial distributions are used. Those distributions are piecewise specified by exponential polynomials. This class contains many known distributions as special cases, more general distributions can be approximated.