Writing and executing ODP computational viewpoint specifications using Maude

The Reference Model of Open Distributed Processing (RM-ODP) is a joint standardization effort by ITU-T and ISO/IEC for the specification of large open distributed systems. RM-ODP is becoming increasingly relevant now because the size and complexity of large distributed systems is challenging current software engineering methods and tools, and because international standards have become key to achieve the required interoperability between the different parties and organizations involved in the design and development of complex systems. RM-ODP defines five viewpoints for decomposing the design activity into separate areas of concern. One of the RM-ODP viewpoints, the computational viewpoint, focuses on the basic functionality of the system and its environment, independently of its distribution. Although several notations have been proposed to model the ODP computational viewpoint, either they are not expressive enough to faithfully represent all its concepts, or they tend to suffer from a lack of formal support. In this paper we introduce the use of Maude as a formal notation for writing and executing ODP computational viewpoint specifications. Maude is an executable rewriting logic language specially well suited for the specification of object-oriented open and distributed systems. We show how Maude offers a simple, natural, and accurate way of modeling the ODP computational viewpoint concepts, allows the execution of the specifications produced, and offers good tool support for reasoning about them.