Treffer: Animation of Protocols and Distributed Algorithms.

In order to support education in distributed system fundamentals and to elucidate the function of distributed algorithms and protocols, we apply animations of formal models which concentrate on the mediation of aspects of the dynamic system behavior. For this purpose we adapted and extended approaches and tools supporting the animation of sequential algorithms. Besides sets of special animations, the results comprise a set of view types providing for the convenient presentation of dynamic properties. Furthermore, we report on experiences we gained from a series of corresponding educational experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]