Asynchronous Inference: Preserve Workpiece Identity When Results Finish Out of Order
OpenVINO supports synchronous and asynchronous requests and explicitly notes that concurrent completion order is not guaranteed. Asynchrony provides scheduling capability; the application still owns the relationship among input, output and the physical workpiece to which a decision belongs.
Bind identity before submission
Carry an independent input identity through submission, completion and publication. Do not renumber results according to callback arrival. Use distinguishable test inputs and include a case where later work completes earlier, then prove that each decision returns to the intended workpiece reference.
For this review, identify the delivered device, software and configuration revisions first. Record unsupported, disabled and untested capabilities separately. Evidence from another model is useful context, but cannot establish what the delivered combination actually provides. Keep the original input beside the settings used to interpret it.
Define buffer ownership
Specify when input storage may be reused, when outputs are read and when a request returns to the available pool. Manage shared arrays according to the actual API contract. Upstream reuse of data still needed by active work can create errors that appear unrelated to scheduling.
Retain the original input and the reason for the decision, rather than a successful screenshot alone. Change only the variables agreed for the comparison, and keep the before-and-after configuration. List conditions that were not exercised explicitly; they should not silently become part of the accepted operating range.
Separate timeout from cancellation
An unsuccessful timed wait does not by itself establish that computation stopped. Define subsequent waiting, cancellation, discard and late-result rules. Show how each affects request reuse and workpiece identity so that a delayed completion cannot unexpectedly publish a decision after the application abandoned that input.
Use the three illustrated observations as starting questions, rather than as diagnoses of an installation that has not been inspected. Check record completeness, units and identity before selecting the next observation. An unresolved result is more informative than a confident explanation assembled from missing fields or unrelated test runs.
Review callback responsibilities
State whether a callback only hands off a result or also performs substantial additional work. Inspect exception handling, shared counters and shutdown. A failed callback should not silently remove request capacity while the interface continues to imply that the processing pool is fully available.
Let the site owner choose an approved isolated way to exercise relevant exceptions. Record normal operation, the exceptional condition and recovery separately. The purpose is to establish how the application recognises and explains untrustworthy input, without requiring production equipment to act on deliberately invalid results.
Deliver out-of-order and shutdown evidence
Retain joined records for out-of-order completion, timeout and orderly shutdown, with a final state for every request. Alongside throughput, verify the absence of duplicate publication, lost identity and earlier-session results appearing as decisions in a newly started session.
Deliver the configuration, representative samples, result table and unresolved questions together. Agree who reviews subsequent changes. The receiving team should be able to select one conclusion and trace it back to its input and decision path without relying on the original author to reconstruct the missing steps.
Original documentation and further reading
Continue with related articles in this section, or use selection guides to prepare the next review. Apply the device-specific documentation and agreed operating conditions when implementing a test.