Time Indexing Architecture

The implementation itself has a layered architecture, with an application independent core providing a foundation for various kinds of applications suitable for different business domains.

The diagram below shows the architecture:

The three lowest levels, which are the indexing core, provide an implementation of the set of operations on the container, and the set of formats for the container.

• Layer one is how the time-index is formatted on a disc, it is a static entity, being just the bytes on the disc.
• Layer two provides input and output services, to get the data to and from the disc and into memory.
• Layer three is the implementation of the container operations. The implementation can be in any programming language as the format on disc is language independent.

The next two levels are for index presentation. In these layers more complex operations on time-indexes are implemented.

• Layer four is for plug-in components that provide a bridge between the domain of time-indexing and the application domain. Such plug-in components include data specific recorders and players, that rely on the indexing core for their operation. Examples might be a log file recorder, which would add one log entry at a time, or an audio player, which would select a single audio sample from the time index and play just the one sample. Also at this level are plug-in matching components which inspect or match the data but do not attempt to play it back.
• Layer five implements the more complex operations that gives time-indexing much of its power. These include operations such as the merging, the cross-referencing, and the compositing operations.

The top most layer is for the applications themselves. These applications utilize the core operations on time-indexes, the complex operations such as the merging, compositing, and cross referencing, and access the plug-in components. At this level many kinds of application can be written.