Automatic Verification of Database-Driven Systems: A New Frontier
Author
- Victor Vianu (UC San Diego, USA)
Abstract
Software systems centered around a database are becoming pervasive in numerous applications. However, such systems are often very complex and prone to costly bugs, whence the need for verification of critical properties. Recently, a novel approach to verification of database-driven systems has been taking shape. Instead of applying general-purpose techniques with only partial guarantees of success, it aims to identify restricted but sufficiently expressive classes of applications and properties for which sound and complete verification can be performed in a fully automatic way. This leverages the emergence of high-level specification tools for database-centered applications that not only allow fast prototyping and improved programmer productivity but, as a side effect, provide convenient targets for automatic verification. We present theoretical and practical results on verification of database-driven systems. The results are quite encouraging and suggest that, unlike arbitrary software systems, significant classes of database-driven systems may be amenable to automatic verification. This relies on a novel marriage of database and model checking techniques, of relevance to both the database and the computer aided verification communities.
About the Speaker
Victor Vianu (UC San Diego, USA)
Victor Vianu is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, San Diego. He received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Southern California in 1983. He has taught at the Ecole Normale Superieure and Ecole Nationale Superieure des Telecommunications in Paris, as well as the Sorbonne, and has spent sabbaticals as Invited Professor at INRIA. Vianu's interests include database theory, computational logic, and Web data. His most recent research focuses on static analysis of XML-based systems, and specification and verification of data-driven Web services.
Vianu's publications include over 100 research articles and a graduate textbook on database theory. He has given numerous invited talks, is a member of several editorial boards, and has served as General Chair of SIGMOD and Program Chair of the PODS and ICDT conferences. He was elected Fellow of the ACM in 2006.