@article {Distefano201722, title = {Marking dependency in non-Markovian stochastic Petri nets}, journal = {Performance Evaluation}, volume = {110}, year = {2017}, note = {cited By 0}, pages = {22-47}, publisher = {Elsevier B.V.}, abstract = {

Marking dependency is a powerful tool that allows different firing time distributions to be associated with a stochastic Petri net transition, depending on the marking. Through this feature, the modeler can easily and compactly represent advanced properties and behaviors of the system. While a semantics and specific solution techniques have been provided for generalized stochastic Petri nets thus covering homogeneous Markovian aspects, in the non-homogeneous/non-Markovian case marking dependency still needs to be investigated. To fill this gap, this paper provides a formalization of marking dependent semantics in non-Markovian stochastic Petri nets (NMSPNs) and a solution technique, based on phase type distributions and Kronecker algebra, able to deal with such a feature allowing both transient and steady-state analyses. To motivate the actual need of marking dependency in NMSPN modeling and to demonstrate the potential of such a feature as well as the validity of the proposed solution technique a case study on a multi-core CPU system with power management facilities is explored. {\textcopyright} 2017 Elsevier B.V.

}, keywords = {Algebra, energy management, Kronecker algebra, Marking dependency, Multi-core cpus, non-Markovian stochastic Petri nets, Petri nets, phase type distributions, Power management, Program processors, Random access storage, Semantics, Stochastic systems}, issn = {01665316}, doi = {10.1016/j.peva.2017.03.001}, url = {https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85016027299\&doi=10.1016\%2fj.peva.2017.03.001\&partnerID=40\&md5=a00a4d3147bd499b5f8879d3573b4670}, author = {Salvatore Distefano and Francesco Longo and Marco Scarpa} } @proceedings {Bruneo2015797, title = {Analytical Modeling of Reactive Autonomic Management Techniques in IaaS Clouds}, journal = {Proceedings - 2015 IEEE 8th International Conference on Cloud Computing, CLOUD 2015}, year = {2015}, note = {cited By 2; Conference of 8th IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing, CLOUD 2015 ; Conference Date: 27 June 2015 Through 2 July 2015; Conference Code:116940}, pages = {797-804}, publisher = {Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.}, address = {New York (USA)}, abstract = {

Cloud computing infrastructures provide services to a wide number of users whose behavior can deeply change at the occurrence of particular events. To correctly handle such situations a cloud infrastructure have to be reconfigured in a way that does not cause degradation in the overall performance. Otherwise, the quality of service specified in the service level agreement could be violated. To prevent such situations, the infrastructure could be organized as an autonomic system where self-adaptation and self-configuration techniques are implemented. Appropriate design choices become important in order not to fail in this goal. We propose a technique, based on a Petri net model and a specific analytical analysis approach, to represent Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) systems in the case in which the load conditions can suddenly change and reactive autonomic management techniques are applied to mitigate the consequences of the change. The model we propose is able to appropriately evaluate performance metrics in such critical situations making it suitable as a design tool for IaaS cloud systems. {\textcopyright} 2015 IEEE.

}, keywords = {Autonomic management, cloud computing, Cloud computing infrastructures, Cloud infrastructures, Iaas clouds, Industrial management, Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), Performance metrics, Petri nets, Quality of service, Resiliency, Service Level Agreements, Stochastic reward nets, Stochastic systems}, isbn = {9781467372879}, doi = {10.1109/CLOUD.2015.110}, url = {https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84960155425\&doi=10.1109\%2fCLOUD.2015.110\&partnerID=40\&md5=2aa09923889aea0bc667deb1d6d250d8}, author = {Dario Bruneo and Francesco Longo and Rahul Ghosh and Marco Scarpa and Antonio Puliafito and Kishor Trivedi} } @article {Distefano2015629, title = {QoS Assessment of Mobile Crowdsensing Services}, journal = {Journal of Grid Computing}, volume = {13}, number = {4}, year = {2015}, note = {cited By 2}, pages = {629-650}, publisher = {Springer Netherlands}, abstract = {

The wide spreading of smart devices drives to develop distributed applications of increasing complexity, attracting efforts from both research and business communities. Recently, a new volunteer contribution paradigm based on participatory and opportunistic sensing is affirming in the Internet of Things scenario: Mobile Crowdsensing (MCS). A typical MCS application considers smart devices as contributing sensors able to produce geolocalized data about the physical environment, then collected by a remote application server for processing. The growing interest on MCS allows to think about its possible exploitation in commercial context. This calls for adequate methods able to support MCS service providers in design choices, implementing mechanisms for the quality of service (QoS) assessment while dealing with complex time-dependent phenomena and churning issues due to contributors that unpredictably join and leave the MCS system. In this paper, we propose an analytical modeling framework based on stochastic Petri nets to evaluate QoS metrics of a class of MCS services. This method requires to extend the Petri net formalism by specifying a marking dependency semantics for non-exponentially distributed transitions. The approach is then applied to an MCS application example deriving some QoS measures that can drive quantitative evaluation and characterization of the {\textquotedblleft}crowd{\textquotedblright} behavior. {\textcopyright} 2015, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

}, keywords = {crowdsensing, Digital storage, Distributed applications, Marking dependency, Non-Markovian, Performability, Petri nets, Quality of service, Quality of service (QoS) assessments, Quantitative evaluation, Semantics, Stochastic systems, Time dependent phenomena}, issn = {15707873}, doi = {10.1007/s10723-015-9338-7}, url = {https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84958155341\&doi=10.1007\%2fs10723-015-9338-7\&partnerID=40\&md5=3bd7e36a37ab06a3acabb37a21b90ab1}, author = {Salvatore Distefano and Francesco Longo and Marco Scarpa} } @proceedings {Bruneo201598, title = {An SRN-based resiliency quantification approach}, journal = {Proceedings of the 36th International Conference on Application and Theory of Petri Nets and Concurrency (Petri Nets)}, volume = {9115 Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, year = {2015}, note = {cited By 0; Conference of 36th International Conference on Application and Theory of Petri Nets and Concurrency, Petri Nets 2015 ; Conference Date: 21 June 2015 Through 26 June 2015; Conference Code:119609}, pages = {98-116}, publisher = {Springer Verlag}, address = {Brussels, Belgium, 21-26 June 2015}, abstract = {

Resiliency is often considered as a synonym for faulttolerance and reliability/availability. We start from a different definition of resiliency as the ability to deliver services when encountering unexpected changes. Semantics of change is of extreme importance in order to accurately capture the real behavior of a system. We propose a resiliency analysis technique based on stochastic reward nets that allows the modeler: (1) to reuse an already existing dependability or performance model for a specific system with minimal modifications, and (2) to adapt the given model for specific change semantics. To automate the model analysis an algorithm is designed and the modeler is provided with a formalism that corresponds to the semantics. Our algorithm and approach is implemented to demonstrate the proposed resiliency quantification approach. Finally, we discuss the differences between our approach and an alternative technique based on deterministic and stochastic Petri nets and highlight the advantages of the proposed approach in terms of semantics specification. {\textcopyright} Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015.

}, keywords = {Analysis techniques, Deterministic and stochastic Petri nets, Model analysis, Performance Model, Petri nets, Resiliency, Semantics, Stochastic models, Stochastic reward nets, Stochastic systems}, isbn = {9783319194875}, issn = {03029743}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-19488-2_5}, url = {http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84937428490\&partnerID=40\&md5=7d0bbe99afba1a79df65b4e35e86a02c}, author = {Dario Bruneo and Francesco Longo and Marco Scarpa and Antonio Puliafito and Rahul Ghosh and Kishor S. Trivedi} } @article {Longo20151540, title = {Two-layer symbolic representation for stochastic models with phase-type distributed events}, journal = {International Journal of Systems Science}, volume = {46}, number = {9}, year = {2015}, note = {cited By 2}, pages = {1540-1571}, publisher = {Taylor and Francis Ltd.}, abstract = {

Among the techniques that have been proposed for the analysis of non-Markovian models, the state space expansion approach showed great flexibility in terms of modelling capacities.The principal drawback is the explosion of the state space. This paper proposes a two-layer symbolic method for efficiently storing the expanded reachability graph of a non-Markovian model in the case in which continuous phase-type distributions are associated with the firing times of system events, and different memory policies are considered. At the lower layer, the reachability graph is symbolically represented in the form of a set of Kronecker matrices, while, at the higher layer, all the information needed to correctly manage event memory is stored in a multi-terminal multi-valued decision diagram. Such an information is collected by applying a symbolic algorithm, which is based on a couple of theorems. The efficiency of the proposed approach, in terms of memory occupation and execution time, is shown by applying it to a set of non-Markovian stochastic Petri nets and comparing it with a classical explicit expansion algorithm. Moreover, a comparison with a classical symbolic approach is performed whenever possible. {\textcopyright} 2013 Taylor \& Francis.

}, keywords = {Decision diagram, Decision theory, efficient memory occupation, Many valued logics, Markov processes, Non-Markovian, Petri nets, phase type distributions, Stochastic models, Stochastic systems, symbolic representation}, issn = {00207721}, doi = {10.1080/00207721.2013.822940}, url = {http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84928644988\&partnerID=40\&md5=3f853e6fcb8bddeebf2e890076ff798d}, author = {Francesco Longo and Marco Scarpa} } @proceedings {Distefano201377, title = {Investigating mobile crowdsensing application performance}, journal = {Proceedings of the 3rd ACM International Symposium on Design and Analysis of Intelligent Vehicular Networks and Applications (DIVANet), Co-located with the 16th ACM Int. Conf. on Modeling, Analysis and Simulation of Wireless and Mobile Systems (MSWiM)}, year = {2013}, note = {cited By 0; Conference of 3rd ACM Int. Symp. on Design and Analysis of Intelligent Vehicular Networks and Applications, DIVANet 2013, Held in Conjunction with the 16th ACM Int. Conf. on Modeling, Analysis and Simulation of Wireless and Mobile Systems, MSWiM 2013 ; Conference Date: 3 November 2013 Through 8 November 2013; Conference Code:101342}, pages = {77-83}, publisher = {ACM}, address = {Barcelona, Spain, 3-8 November 2013}, abstract = {

Mobile Crowdsensing (MCS) is an emerging distributed paradigm lying at the intersection between the Internet of Things and the volunteer/crowd-based approach. MCS applications are usually deployed on contributing nodes such as smart devices and mobiles, equipped by sensing resources that sample the physical environment and provide the sensed data, once filtered, aggregated and preprocessed, to the MCS application server. The MCS opportunistic approach unlocks new form of pervasive, participatory sensing applications, acquiring interests also in business contexts that call for adequate techniques and tools to drive architects and developers in MCS application design. Aim of this paper is to evaluate the performance of an MCS application though a stochastic model able to stochastically represent the overall MCS environment, thus providing a valid support to MCS application development. The Petri nets formalism is used due to its expressiveness and the capabilities to represent complex, dependent, non-Markovian, phenomena usually characterizing MCS environments. A specific MCS application is then evaluated to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed technique on a real case study. {\textcopyright} 2013 ACM.

}, keywords = {Application development, Application performance, Complex networks, crowdsensing, Design, Digital storage, Internet of Things (IOT), Participatory sensing applications, Performance, Petri nets, Physical environments, Stochastic models, Techniques and tools}, isbn = {9781450323581}, doi = {10.1145/2512921.2512931}, url = {http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84889685098\&partnerID=40\&md5=15df22b992482173437dcd8080bbbc94}, author = {Salvatore Distefano and Francesco Longo and Marco Scarpa} } @proceedings {Bruneo2012277, title = {Modeling energy-aware cloud federations with SRNs}, journal = {32nd International Conference on Application and Theory of Petri Nets and Concurrency (Petri Nets)}, volume = {7400 Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, year = {2012}, note = {cited By 4; Conference of 32nd International Conference on Application and Theory of Petri Nets and Concurrency, Petri Nets 2011 ; Conference Date: 20 June 2011 Through 24 June 2011; Conference Code:94089}, pages = {277-307}, publisher = {Springer-Verlag}, address = {Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, 20-24 June 2011}, abstract = {

Cloud computing is a challenging technology that promises to strongly modify the way computing and storage resources will be accessed in the near future. However, it may demand huge amount of energy if adequate management policies are not put in place. In particular, in the context of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Cloud, optimization strategies are needed in order to allocate, migrate, consolidate virtual machines, and manage the switch on/switch off period of a data centre. In this paper, we present a methodology based on stochastic reward nets (SRNs) to investigate the more convenient strategies to manage a federation of two or more private or public IaaS Clouds. Several policies are presented and their impact is evaluated, thus contributing to a rational and efficient adoption of the Cloud computing paradigm. {\textcopyright} 2012 Springer-Verlag.

}, keywords = {cloud computing, Computing paradigm, Data centres, Digital storage, Energy aware, Energy conservation, Management policy, Optimization strategy, Performance evaluation, Petri nets, Quality of service, Stochastic reward nets, Stochastic systems, Storage resources, Switch-on, virtual machines}, isbn = {9783642351785}, issn = {03029743}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-642-35179-2_12}, url = {http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84870045120\&partnerID=40\&md5=b1e106331e417cc512bcbc713cc582de}, author = {Dario Bruneo and Francesco Longo and Antonio Puliafito} } @article {Bruneo20111213, title = {Performance analysis of job dissemination techniques in Grid systems}, journal = {Concurrency Computation Practice and Experience - John Wiley \& Sons, Inc.}, volume = {23}, number = {11}, year = {2011}, note = {cited By 2}, pages = {1213-1235}, abstract = {

In the last few years, remarkable efforts have been made to extend the Grid paradigm to commercial solutions. Business-oriented grids call for effective Quality of Service strategies able to adapt to different user requirements and to address Service Level Agreements. Performance analysis and prediction with respect to different load conditions or management policies are required to define such strategies. However, the highly distributed nature of Grid systems and the presence of distinct administrative domains make it difficult to carry out performance estimations. In fact, several parameters are involved and the autonomy of each site could make it complex to set them in a proper way. In this paper, we present a non-Markovian Stochastic Petri Net methodology that allows to conduct performance analysis of Grid systems focusing on aspects related to the Virtual Organization as a whole. In particular, different job allocation techniques can be evaluated with respect to both user and provider points-of-view. The influence of different information update policies on the accuracy of the allocation schemes can also be investigated, highlighting the costs/benefits in terms of job waiting time, service availability, and system utilization. The proposed methodology is designed to be as general as possible and it can be applied to analyze a gLite Grid infrastructure taken as case study. {\textcopyright} 2011 John Wiley \& Sons, Ltd.

}, keywords = {Grid computing, Grid infrastructures, Grid systems, Information updates, Job allocation, Load condition, Management policy, Non-Markovian, Performance analysis, Performance estimation, performance measurements, Petri nets, Quality of service, Random access storage, Service availability, Service Level Agreements, Stochastic Petri Nets, Stochastic systems, System utilization, User requirements, Virtual organization, Waiting-time}, issn = {15320626}, doi = {10.1002/cpe.1697}, url = {http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-79960133545\&partnerID=40\&md5=a557a0ec6dd02249f31a6a0960e2bc92}, author = {Dario Bruneo and Francesco Longo and Marco Scarpa and Antonio Puliafito} } @proceedings {Longo2011335, title = {A scalable availability model for Infrastructure-as-a-Service cloud}, journal = {Proceedings of the 41st IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN)}, year = {2011}, note = {cited By 33; Conference of 2011 IEEE/IFIP 41st International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks, DSN 2011 ; Conference Date: 27 June 2011 Through 30 June 2011; Conference Code:86090}, pages = {335-346}, publisher = {IEEE Computer Society}, address = {Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 27-30 June 2011}, abstract = {

High availability is one of the key characteristics of Infrastructure-as-a- Service (IaaS) cloud. In this paper, we show a scalable method for availability analysis of large scale IaaS cloud using analytic models. To reduce the complexity of analysis and the solution time, we use an interacting Markov chain based approach. The construction and the solution of the Markov chains is facilitated by the use of a high-level Petri net based paradigm known as stochastic reward net (SRN). Overall solution is composed by iteration over individual SRN sub-model solutions. Dependencies among the sub-models are resolved using fixed-point iteration, for which existence of a solution is proved. We compare the solution obtained from the interacting sub-models with a monolithic model and show that errors introduced by decomposition are insignificant. Additionally, we provide closed form solutions of the sub-models and show that our approach can handle very large size IaaS clouds. {\textcopyright} 2011 IEEE.

}, keywords = {Analytic models, availability analysis, Closed form solutions, Fixed-point iterations, High availability, Key characteristics, Large sizes, Markov Chain, Markov model, Markov processes, Petri nets, Scalability, Scalable methods, Solution time, Stochastic reward nets, Submodels}, isbn = {9781424492336}, doi = {10.1109/DSN.2011.5958247}, url = {http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-80051928903\&partnerID=40\&md5=37f3360476d39837acf5098ca20408c7}, author = {Francesco Longo and Rahul Ghosh and Vijay K. Naik and Kishor S. Trivedi} } @proceedings {Bruneo2010, title = {QoS assessment of WS-BPEL processes through non-Markovian stochastic Petri nets}, journal = {Proceedings of the 24th IEEE International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Processing (IPDPS)}, year = {2010}, note = {cited By 11; Conference of 24th IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium, IPDPS 2010 ; Conference Date: 19 April 2010 Through 23 April 2010; Conference Code:80843}, publisher = {IEEE Computer Society}, address = {Atlanta, GA, United States, 19-23 April 2010}, abstract = {

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is the most important and effective software paradigm to design Internet-based services. Using the SOA technology, value-added services can be easily deployed as a combination of existing Web services. In this context, WS-BPEL language has become the SOA industrial standard. To allow services to be composed, business relationships between providers and consumers have to be adequately managed. This implies that a formal definition of Quality of Service (QoS) is agreed and that effective tools for its measurement have to be developed. However, the design ofQoS guaranteed composed Web services still requires several efforts due to the highly distributed nature ofsuch software applications. This work aims at proposing a methodology to evaluate Web service performance at the earliest design phase. We present a novel technique to translate WS-BPEL processes into non-Markovian stochastic Petri nets with the final goal to evaluate parameters such as service time distribution and service reliability. The obtained model can be numerically solved through automatic tools, allowing to investigate the service behavior under different operating conditions and thus helping software engineers to develop QoS-guaranteed software solutions. {\textcopyright} 2010 IEEE.

}, keywords = {Automatic tools, Business relationships, Computer software, Design, Design phase, Distributed parameter networks, Effective tool, Formal definition, Graph theory, Industrial standards, Information services, Internet-based services, Non-Markovian, Novel techniques, Operating condition, Petri nets, Quality of service, Service oriented architecture (SOA), Service reliability, Service time distribution, Software applications, Software engineers, Software paradigm, Software solution, Stochastic Petri Nets, Stochastic systems, Value added service, Web services, WS-BPEL}, isbn = {9781424464432}, doi = {10.1109/IPDPS.2010.5470391}, url = {http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-77954020712\&partnerID=40\&md5=70790f3d893defcf4e9c792d8b58c5da}, author = {Dario Bruneo and Salvatore Distefano and Francesco Longo and Marco Scarpa} } @proceedings {Bruneo2010243, title = {VO-level performance analysis of gLite Grids}, journal = {Proceedings of the 19th IEEE Workshop on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises (WETICE)}, year = {2010}, note = {cited By 0; Conference of 19th IEEE International Workshops on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises, WETICE 2010 ; Conference Date: 28 June 2010 Through 30 June 2010; Conference Code:81490}, pages = {243-248}, publisher = {IEEE Computer Society}, address = {Larissa, Greece, 28-30 June 2010}, abstract = {

Business oriented grids call for effective Quality of Service strategies able to adapt to different user requirements. Performance analyses and predictions with respect to different load conditions or management policies are essential instruments to define such strategies. In this paper, we present a non-Markovian Stochastic Petri Net model that allows to conduct performance analyses of Grid systems focusing on aspects related to the Virtual Organization as a whole. Different job allocation techniques will be evaluated with respect to both user and provider point-of-views. We will also investigate the influence of different information update policies on the accuracy of the allocation schemes, highlighting the costs/benefits in terms of job waiting time, service availability, and system utilization. {\textcopyright} 2010 IEEE.

}, keywords = {Business-oriented, gLite middleware, Graph theory, Grid computing, Grid systems, Information updates, Job allocation, Load condition, Management policy, middleware, Non-Markovian, Performance analysis, performance measurements, Petri nets, Quality of service, Random access storage, Service availability, Stochastic models, Stochastic Petri Nets, Stochastic systems, System utilization, User requirements, Virtual organization, Waiting-time}, isbn = {9780769540634}, issn = {15244547}, doi = {10.1109/WETICE.2010.45}, url = {http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-77955917215\&partnerID=40\&md5=5f89b9d07327325a09d78d1af77f0519}, author = {Dario Bruneo and Francesco Longo and Marco Scarpa and Antonio Puliafito} }