Case study in protocol validation

This paper discusses validation techniques for communication protocols and analyzes the practical use of selected validation techniques in an automated manner. A case study on validating the ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) Signalling Protocol as specified by ITU-T in Q.2931 is used for this analysis. Different error classes are identified and validated. An assessment of the different validation techniques in terms of effort and quality of results is given. As a result of the case study, an evaluation of the Q.2931 SDL specification completes the paper.