What is Event Driven Architecture (EDA) and Why Does it Matter?

by K. Mani Chandy, CalTech, and Roy Schulte, Gartner Inc.

Event processing has emerged as one of the most important issues in IT today. Event processing encompasses two separate, although related, ideas:

1. Architecture: Event-Driven Architecture (EDA) is a style of application architecture centered on an asynchronous “push”- based communication model. EDA is the software architecture of choice for implementing “straight through” multistage business processes that deliver goods, services and information with minimum delay. Applications designed using EDA are also easier to modify than traditional applications as business requirements change.

2. Sense and Respond: The ability to respond rapidly and effectively to changing conditions is a powerful competitive advantage. Companies can use Complex-event Processing (CEP) techniques, a sophisticated form of EDA, to extract the information value from multiple events. CEP systems find patterns in event data to detect opportunities and threats. Timely alerts are then pushed to the appropriate recipients, often using Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) dashboards or similar end-user information delivery channels. The result is faster and better operational decisions and more timely responses to important situations. Download-PDF