From UML models to software performance results: an SPE process based on XML interchange formats

The SPE process uses multiple performance assessment tools depending on the state of the software and the amount of performance data available. This paper describes two XML based interchange formats that facilitate using a variety of performance tools in a plug-and-play manner thus enabling the use of the tool best suited to the analysis. The Software Performance Model Interchange Format (S-PMIF) is a common representation that is used to exchange information between (UML-based) software design tools and software performance engineering tools. On the other hand, the performance model interchange format (PMIF 2.0) is a common representation for system performance model data that can be used to move models among system performance modeling tools that use a queueing network model paradigm. This paper first defines an XML based S-PMIF based on an updated SPE meta-model Then it demonstrates the feasibility of using both the S-PMIF and the PMIF 2.0 to automatically translate an architecture description in UML into both a software performance model and a system performance model to study the performance characteristics of the architecture. This required the implementation of some extensions to the XPRIT software in order to export UML models into the S-PMIF and a new function in the SPEED software to import S-PMIF models, which are also described. The SPE process and an experimental proof of concept are presented.