An Architecture for a Distributed Stream Synchronization Service

: A stream synchronization service provides the basis for the efficient control and synchronization of continuous, time-dependent data streams in distributed environments. Together with resource management and application configuration, it is one of the core multimedia system services. The stream synchronization service may be realized by a three layer architecture consisting of an interface layer enabling distributed clients to access stream control interfaces, of the control and synchronization layer implementing alternative stream synchronization protocols to coordinate the flow of data units, and of the stream layer where data units of time-dependent streams are transferred and processed. The proposed architecture supports the control of time-dependent data streams having arbitrarily distributed sources and sinks by clients which may be distributed themselves. The incorporation of alternative synchronization protocols offers the flexibility required to satisfy the wide range of req..