Abstract Runtime Monitoring with USE

We present a tool that permits developers to monitor and verify assumptions at an abstract level about an application running on a virtual machine. On the implementation level, a so-called platform aligned model (PAM) described in the UML (Unified Modeling Language) and enriched by OCL (Object Constraint Language) requirements is used to formalize these assumptions. Our solution allows a developer to concentrate on verifying core parts of an implementation while ignoring major parts of peripheral technical details. In order to easily detect a PAM which characterizes the central requirements, we propose a semi-automatic approach. First, a complete program model is generated by analyzing the source code. Afterwards, this model is reduced by the user to central classes and associations. This reduced model is enriched by the assumptions about the expected behavior of the system. The monitor connects to the running system at a particular point in time and builds up an abstract snapshot, i.e., an instance of the PAM, which corresponds to the current state. When the application is further executed this snapshot is synchronized by listening to changes in the running system. During monitoring the stated assumptions are validated and possible violations are reported to the user.