Protocol quality engineering: addressing industry concerns about formal methods

In this paper, we describe a quality-directed perspective on the lifecycle process of designing and assembling communications systems and services. We claim this perspective addresses some of the industrial concerns of quality and productivity for the protocol engineering process, while allowing for some of the best formal techniques known for protocol synthesis, verification, conformance testing and performance assessment. We hope that this perspective will assist in the development of a generic conceptual framework which enables the evolution, integration and practical application of protocol engineering models, methods, languages and tools.