Dreams: a framework for distributed synchronous coordination

Synchronous coordination systems, such as Reo, exchange data via indivisible actions, while distributed systems are typically asynchronous and assume that messages can be delayed or get lost. To combine these seemingly contradictory notions, we introduce the Dreams framework. Coordination patterns in Dreams are described using a synchronous model based on the Reo language, whereas global system behaviour is given by the runtime composition of autonomous actors communicating asynchronously. Dreams also exploits the use of actors in the composition of synchronous coordination patterns to allow communication whenever possible, increasing the scalability of the implementation.