high-level architecture (HLA)

A high-level architecture (HLA) is a general purpose architecture for distributed computer simulation systems
Using HLA, computer simulations can interact (that is, to communicate data, and to synchronize actions) with other computer simulations regardless of the computing platforms.
The interaction between simulations is managed by a Run-Time Infrastructure (RTI).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-level_architecture_%28simulation%29