You've heard of object-based computing and service-oriented architecture (SOA), but what about event-driven computing? The term has been floating around out there, but what does it really mean and how does it differ from past technology paradigms?
Ruma Sanyal, BEA Systems' director of product marketing for time and event-driven products, has some insights.
"An event is a thing or a state change that happens that may or may not be of consequence to a business," she explains. "An event could be a change in the price of a stock, the launch of a missile, the purchase of an item, the ordering of an item and the failure of a production line. The entire world is event-driven and always has been."
In computing, this might mean something like a toy manufacturer tracking purchase patterns for a particular genre of games in order to match supply to predicted demand. Another example might be a telecom service monitoring competitors' news announcements in order to predict market interest for potential new business efforts. All in all, event-driven computing is a way to increase agility and effectiveness.
Why Invest in Event-Driven Computing?
That's all fine and good, you might be thinking, but why should companies be interested in new technology for these purposes?
"It's threefold," says Sanyal. At the highest level, such an event-driven computing effort might be driven by the data proliferation in the enterprise and the need to find technology to manage that data and act upon it. Second, finding ways to manage data definitely increases business velocity. Third, event-driven computing isn't a pipe dream anymore.
"The technology providers and the vendors that have specific products for complex event processing and event-driven computing is present today," Sanyal asserts.
Research suggests that companies are taking event-driven computing seriously as well. Sanyal points to a recent anonymous survey of 450 people in which 90 percent of respondents stated plans to boost event processing over the next two years.
"This really brings to bear the fact that event computing has reached mainstream," she says.
The Instantly Responsive Enterprise
BEA has even coined a moniker for customers who aspire to respond immediately to business threats or opportunities: "the instantly responsive enterprise."
But she urges caution for interpreting the definition of "instant." Companies rarely need to respond in milliseconds or microseconds to data, she says, but people's definitions of instant might be anything from microseconds to days.
"Whatever the definition of an instant for a vertical or an enterprise might be, within those realms, if the enterprise is able to react, that's really what is required to become an instantly responsive enterprise," she concludes.
