Highly scalable, peer-based, real-time agent architecture

A scalable, peer-to-peer based agent architecture, comprising:

• a platform that interfaces to external entities using a platform API, the platform including an application repository that stores stream sources and associated descriptors, an agent environment and a developer console;
• virtualization environments that each execute stream sources to produce output data,
• wherein virtualization providers register the virtualization environments with the platform,
• wherein the stream sources and associated descriptors are replicated from the platform to the virtualization environments;
• wherein one or more agents connect to the agent environment and use published information about other agents to determine which of the other agents the one or more agents want to peer with, and
• wherein peered agents communicate the output data therebetween using a peer-to-peer connection.

A method for providing scalable, peer-to-peer based streaming between agents, comprising:

• receiving a stream source uploaded to a console of a platform from an authenticated user;
• saving the stream source to an application repository together with descriptor information associated with the stream source;
• provisioning the stream source by replicating the stream source and descriptor information to at least one virtualization environment specified by the descriptors and registered with the platform by an associated virtualization provider;
• subsequently, receiving a request at the platform to launch the stream source;
• executing a first process in the at least one virtualization environment to run the stream source;
• executing a second process in the at least one virtualization environment to run an agent associated with the stream source;
• and
• streaming data from the agent to a second agent over a peer-to-peer connection to exchange data and messaging therebetween.