Asynchronous Data Access

Data is the lifeblood of a system. In many applications, you start with data that is noisy and inconsistent, and you try to structure and regularize it by applying a variety of data-wrangling methods. In recent years there has been a revolution in our understanding of data and the techniques available for processing it, mostly fueled by the volume of data available. The number of datapoints captured by sensors, actuators, devices and systems makes a case for what is known as data-driven decision-making. When it comes to supporting those decisions, traditional synchronous data-access methods often fall short, because of expectations for short response times – you have to give answers on short timescales but are often working with way more data than before.

In this scenario asynchronous programming can be a valuable tool to scale up the amount of data a system can process, providing a definite advantage in some situations. Our explorations will center...