Evaluating An Sdl Framework For Axe Development

The paper presents a framework approach to the specification of AXE applications in SDL. AXE is the widely used public switching system developed by Ericsson. The framework captures the application specific and target specific properties of AXE applications by packages of predefined SDL types. The AXE developer will, building on top of these types, work in an AXE framework and work in pure SDL extended with types. It is also indicated how certain kinds of design rules can be represented in the framework. The concept of framework is based upon previous experiences with SDL, where code generation to Plex from SDL is controlled by directives. The experiences achieved so far are limited but nevertheless encouraging in achieving efficient reuse of common functionality. The scope of the evaluation have been on making simulation models. Future work will be on code generation and targeting to alternative platforms. In a re-engineering context, the concept of an SDL frameworks forces the designer to think in terms of design instead of documenting the implementation by the use of SDL. The latter is the usual process when an application system is re-engineered from target code to an SDL description.