SOA in Action Blog

A couple of things need to happen before complex event processing (CEP) can advance into everyday use across enterprises. First, prices must drop -- which they are. Second, executives need to better understand its potential and methodology, and establish best practices to help it deliver business value.

Neal Leavitt just published these observations on the current state of CEP in the latest edition of Computer Magazine (IEEE Computer Society),

CEP systems, Leavitt says, "collect data from numerous sources about raw events within a company's operations on an ongoing basis and use algorithms and rules to determine in real time the interconnected trends and patterns that combine them into complex events. They then send the findings to the appropriate business user."

The key here is real time insights -- something analytical software has not been able to deliver to date, he says. "Instead, organizations must spend time analyzing past complex events only to yield static results relevant to just the data studied up to that point." Complex events that could use real time analysis include stock trading, fraud detection, inventory tracking, network-performance monitoring, and airline-baggage handling, he points out.

What's changing is the rise of service oriented architecture-based systems, and lower price points for CEP solutions, Leavitt observes. He quotes Gartner's Roy Schulte, who says CEP systems cost, on average, between $100,000 and $250,000. "This is one reason why these products have been limited largely to demanding, high-value applications like those used for stock trading. As CEP systems' prices drop the technology will be used in additional applications."

While there are few use cases available yet, Leavitt's article predicts business-intelligence customers will soon use CEP to implement continuous intelligence, driving faster, more responsive actions to markets, customers, and operations.

How can CEP benefit your operations? On Wednesday, May 13th, Brenda Michelson and I will be hosting a cutting-edge roundtable to explore ways in which enterprises can learn how to improve bottom line results and achieve competitive leadership with CEP. Join us at 12:00 Eastern Time that day for what will be a fascinating discussion on this latest initiative.