S-Net is a declarative coordination language for describing streaming networks of asynchronous components. Streaming networks are defined using an expression language featuring four network combinators as operators: serial composition, parallel composition, serial replication and parallel replication. With the exception of serial composition, the combinators come in two flavours each: the deterministic versions preserve the order of data on streams, whereas non-deterministic variants trade this property for improved throughput. Two primitive components serve housekeeping and synchronisation purposes. Streams are associated with record types: collections of data where each item is uniquely identified by its name. Structural subtyping on recordsdirects the flow of data through the streaming network.

The development of S-Net is embedded into to the EU-funded IST-FET integrated project Æther. Under the umbrella of the Æther project 14 partners from academia and industry across Europe collaborate in an effort to develop self-adaptive embedded technologies for pervasive computing architectures. S-Net forms the main contribution in the Æther subproject on software architectures and programming paradigms.

The coordination of all S-Net related activities as well as the main contribution is made by the Compiler Technology and Computer Architecture group in the Department of Computer Science of the University of Hertfordshire, UK.The other main contributor is VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.

If you would like to know more about S-Net, we recommend you to read the latest edition of our technical report available for download under documents.