SAI: Architecting Distributed Asynchronous Software Systems

Cross-disciplinary researchers working to achieve the Immersipresence vision–that is, combining immersion and interactivity–face the challenge of integrating solutions developed independently in separate fields into working systems, that must operate under hard optimization constraints such as real-time performance, low latency and precise synchronization. The Software Architecture for Immersipresence (SAI) framework offers a unifying approach to the distributed implementation of algorithms and their easy integration into complex systems that exhibit desirable qualities such as efficiency, scalability, extensibility, reusability and interoperability. Although motivated by the Immersipresence vision, SAI provides a general formalism for the design, analysis and implementation of complex software systems of asynchronous interacting processing components. Its use in a growing number of cross-disciplinary projects establishes SAI as a valuable design, engineering and learning tool. The concepts underlying SAI will spawn formal and practical tools, that will help improve software quality and reliability in research, learning and production environments.