September 29th, 2009
SOA, event driven architecture will be in smart systems everywhere
In recent years, we’ve been hearing a lot about the rise of event-driven architecture (EDA), and how this will factor into SOA efforts. This combination may form the foundation of emerging “smart systems.”
CalTech’s Dr. K. Mani Chandy, one of the pioneers of EDA, and author of Event Processing: Designing IT Systems for Agile Companies, says we will be surrounded by SOA and EDA in the years to come. In a new interview with Peter Schooff, Chandy explains:
“I see a great opportunity for both [SOA and EDA] in the next, I say, 20 years starting now. …I really see them being used in all aspects of daily life. I mean management of food, water, energy, health, security and logistics… And what we call smart systems. A lot of talk about smart systems and smart system architectures are fundamentally based on principles from EDA and SOA. And the benefits of these event-driven architecture applications will be directly visible to the business, they’ll be directly visible to the customer and so I think acceptance of these applications and demand for these applications will grow virally and so I see a great future for them.”
Chandy has a formula that illustrates how and why demand for EDA will grow in enterprises in the years to come: “PC-cubed,” for push for ‘price, pervasiveness, performance” accompanied by demand from “connectedness, celerity, and complexity.” The need to process complex events will not only arise in large enterprises, but also in the consumer space as well. “We see really complex events where you’re trying to detect patterns of stock prices and relate them to commodity prices. But you also see complex events in consumer applications where you’d like to know when a given item becomes cheap with one vendor versus another,” Chandy points out.
EDA has been around in various forms since the 1970s, Chandy explained. It’s roots can be traced back to enterprise application integration and sense and response systems. “EDA appeared in the 1970s in message queuing systems and later in enterprise service buses, and this is the EAI ‘parent,’” he said. “The other ‘parent’ is sense and response. In the last decade, many companies have developed sense and respond applications in finance particularly in trading. Now however, sense and response systems are being used in every aspect of life including management of water, food, energy, security, health and so on.”
Joe McKendrick is an author and consultant with deep knowledge and insights regarding trends and developments in the technology industry. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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