event driven architecture – elemental links

Active Information: Streaming through Computational World, Changing change via experimentation platforms

January 4, 2012 By brenda michelson

My latest posts on the HPIO Active Information blog:

Streaming through a Computational World — (most popular post to date)

To take advantage of the computational world, or the nearer term internet of things, we need to infuse smarts throughout our data collection networks. We need to employ up-front and intermediate filters, traffic cops, aggregators, pattern detectors, and intelligent agents. We need to get over being data hoarders, and have the astuteness to leave data behind.

Busting cultural resistance via experimentation platforms — (changing change)

Culture, mistrust of the data, lack of interest. These very human factors are adoption barriers for 46% of the respondents. Yet, these barriers aren’t new. Nor, confined to big data and advanced analytics. To change a culture, you need to bring proof to the table. And proof requires hands-on experimentation and real-world data. We need data to prove that we need data. How will we get that?

Roundtable: Enterprise Architects & Complex Event Processing

September 19, 2011 By brenda michelson

I recently moderated a roundtable to discuss the Enterprise Architect / Complexity Event Processing (CEP) survey that I worked on with StreamBase.

The roundtable featured Nigel Green of 5Di Limited and Jennifer Kennedy of Linden Lab, along with Richard Tibbetts of StreamBase Systems. We discussed the report results, and then some. Check out the webcast replay.

[Disclosure: StreamBase is a client of Elemental Links]

Absence of Event = Event

July 14, 2011 By brenda michelson

In this week’s Active Information post, I riff off a quote by Jud Valeski the CEO of Gnip, on the dearth of event-driven talent:

“Beyond infrastructure issues, as engineers, the web app programming we’ve been doing over the past 15 years has taught us to build applications in a highly synchronous transactional manner…”

“…You would be shocked at the ratio of engineers who can’t build event-driven, asynchronous data processing applications, to those who can, yet this is a big part of this space.”

If you are a frequent reader here, you’ve seen the event constructs I published over there.

One that I didn’t include is the fact that the absence of an event can be an event. Chris Martins brought that up on Twitter.

In my initial event writing, I wrote of a system heartbeat example:

“…a business-to-business order gateway is supposed to be emitting System Heartbeat events every 15 minutes. The System Heartbeat events inform IT operations the gateway is up and running. The absence of a heartbeat event indicates a failure. If the order gateway is down, business customers are likely to place an order with a competitor.”

On Twitter yesterday, I mentioned an event-driven billing subsystem I’m currently working on. In that system, we’ll be generating a (standard) projected monthly invoice. The invoice generation starts when the party is approved for billing.

Invoice regeneration is triggered by a set of events, including a change in plan, the receipt of a payment, or the absence of the receipt of payment. In this subsystem, the absence of a receipt is a non-payment event.

So, yes. The absence of an event is absolutely an event.

Enterprise Architect Friends: Your Insights Wanted – Survey on Event Processing

April 22, 2011 By brenda michelson

I’m working with StreamBase on an Event Processing survey directed at the enterprise architecture community. As a reader of elemental links, there is a high probability you are, work with, or lead enterprise architects. Can you do me a favor? Take the survey. And then, ask your enterprise architect friends and colleagues to do the same.

In appreciation for your participation, you’ll receive:

Access to a pre-release version of our report for review and comment during this discovery phase of our research [everyone]
$10 Starbucks card or a $10 donation to Oxfam as a thank you for your time [first 50 completions]

For your results to count, you need to complete the survey by Friday, April 29th at 5pm UK time, 12 noon ET.

Thanks for the assist! Take the survey.

[Disclosure: StreamBase is a client of my firm, Elemental Links.]

5th Anniversary Edition – Event-Driven Architecture Overview

February 6, 2011 By brenda michelson

Five years ago, I published my Event-Driven Architecture Overview on the Patricia Seybold Group Research Service as well as on elemental links.

Without question, the Event-Driven Architecture Overview is the most popular piece I have written. Because it is architectural, rather than technical, it remains relevant today, and will continue to help practitioners for the next several years.

To celebrate both the 5th Anniversary of the Event-Driven Architecture Overview report publication, and the rising interest in event-driven architecture and event processing, I’m re-issuing the core of the original paper in a traditional, portable, and easy-to-print format.

Staying true to the original, the re-issued report explains key event concepts, walks through event processing flows, and identifies the major implementation components of an event-driven architecture. I did update the event processing provider footnote to reflect current players.

The re-issue includes a new introduction as well as the requisite “About Brenda and Event Processing” page.

The report is free to download, no registration required. If you like it, pass it on to your friends and colleagues.

Download the 5th Anniversary Edition – Event Driven Architecture Overview. (PDF)

Brenda M. Michelson

Recent Posts

Recent Tweets