IBM has no timetable for including SMILE in any products. Possible destinations include IBM's WebSphere Message Broker, WebSphere ESB (enterprise service bus) and the DB2 database.

SMILE supports an optimal placement algorithm and systems management services that are hidden from the developer, Dorai said.

IBM acknowledged similarities between SMILE and software offered by StreamBase Systems, which also offers a stream-processing engine. But IBM said it believes SMILE's quality of service functionality, called an eventual correctness guarantee, is a differentiator.