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Your independent resource on business integration and network computing through middleware and message brokering
Event Driven Architecture
Dr Keith Jones
IBM Software Solutions Worldwide
Management introduction
At the very time that most enterprises are beginning to exploit the capabilities of a Service Oriented Architecture approach (SOA) to building business systems, another approach is attracting the attention of leaders in the IT industry. Some argue that not only is the timing bad but also that there can be no justification for additional complexity or for alternative ways to achieve similar objectives.
In this analysis, Keith Jones reviews the concepts and current status of a relatively new paradigm called Event Driven Architecture (EDA). Even though event programming has been in use for many years - within graphical user interfaces, real-time systems and systems management applications - it has not yet been applied in large measure to business application systems. Iis this about to change?
There is no doubt that enterprise managers are routinely challenged to find creative ways to integrate existing systems more tightly and find productive ways to extract greater value from current investments so that their organizations can become more competitive. Perhaps combining EDA and SOA is the best approach?
Figure 4.1: Event Driven Architecture
Figure 4.2: Event publication
Figure 4.3: Event categories
Figure 4.4: Event middleware components
Figure 4.5: Event and EDA component lifecycle
Management conclusion
Event driven systems are not new. Almost all graphical user interfaces, real-time systems and system management applications deployed today are already event driven. Although 'EDA' concepts are not yet standardized, this paradigm capitalizes on the ability to accommodate asynchrony and recognize important state changes as highly scalable systems are realized.
Some have hailed EDA as the next 'big thing' to follow SOA (including BPM). However, it is clear to me that these different approaches for building systems are not competitors but collaborators. SOA is already providing agility and reduced time-to-market for many enterprises around the commercial world. When SOA is combined with EDA it is possible to envisage additional steps toward further improved decision making within business systems.
The combination of EDA with SOA allows one to envisage systems comprising business processes that are based on well-defined business operations. These operations are in turn implemented as well-defined IT services. Such services may in future be driven by events (for example, these may yet act as event consumers) and may produce critical events which are then fit for consumption by a variety of other services.
This combination will be powerful indeed but before it can be realized, on a large scale, additional standards are required and additional support for tools and runtime middleware infrastructure is required.