Complex Event Processing - Becoming the Keystone for Application Performance Management

An explosion of event traffic has appeared in the business sector since the late 1980s. In electronic terms, an event occurs whenever:

• A message is sent from one person to another.


• A message is sent from one application to another.?

The complexity of processing events is enhanced by the fact that there are so many IT layers through which events pass. There are networks to facilitate the distribution of information, not only between people, but computers. Typically, the business has a middleware layer so it can integrate information from discrete applications both in-house and from external sources. Add the enterprise service bus, the standard messaging software engine and data flowing in from website, and you face a business environment that is buried in event information, but without an overall comprehension of how these events impact the business.

Ultimately the question becomes, "How do I know what I should pay attention to?" There is a way. Complex Event Processing. This technology is able to rapidly scan enormous quantities of data for patterns and is able to discriminate the events that will have business impact from the ones that only have import to IT staff. ?That is why complex event processing (CEP) is such an important core component of application performance management.

When all the network administrators were looking at was network loads and flows, event processing was quite simple. Once the internet exploded on the scene in the late 1980s that all changed. Events began coming into a business from all over the world. Keeping track of messages and transactions and not losing an order could make or break a business. Timely execution could make the difference between closing a deal and losing it to another business. The failure of the business processes comprising these transaction to both run correctly and on time, could result in non-compliance to government rules -- and result in severe penalties.?

Complex event processing began as a way to extract patterns from a veritable cloud of events? which quickly turned to vapor once they were processed by existing IT toolsets. While initially used in algo trading, it has since found a home elsewhere, most notably as the correlation engine for business transaction monitoring.

For financial businesses, complex event processing provides a way to identify when financial transactions are running with business normal efficiency or veering toward business abnormal. It can also be used to identify suspicious transactions, verify that accounting processes remain in compliance with government policies, etc.

For manufacturing businesses, CEP can assist with smooth assembly-line upgrades, for example, or help track down bottlenecks that delay the receipt of orders from customers. CEP of course helps these same businesses also manage the financial aspect of their business more efficiently as well.

CEP's greatest potential is in the area of developing application performance and business transaction monitoring capabilities within an enterprise. Because a CEP engine can take thousands of real-time events and make them visible and traceable, it is possible to evaluate the performance of multiple applications within the IT structure.? Unlike custom coded programs that are designed to focus on a single problem, CEP engines can be designed to focus on multiple problems.

CEP is so vital to the management of multiple applications from a central location. This has brought about what one the major developers of CEP technology, Nastel Technologies, has coined as one of their slogans "360簞 Situational Awareness."

Having a centralized view of the entire IT enterprise allows IT to quickly find and fix problems. AutoPilot M6 and AutoPilot MQ WebSphere provide this view. The CEP engine at the center of Nastel's AutoPilot allows IT to evaluate the health of the entire IT enterprise from one central dashboard. Not only is problem identification enhanced, the Auto Pilot complex event processing capability predicts and prevents problems.

Data collection is automatic. Real-time analytics make tracking normal versus abnormal simple. Compliance to business rules (policies and SLAs) is assured. These are just some of the benefits AutoPilot promises through its complex event centered designed. This is a technology that is worth investigating.