In addition to the de facto term “Complex Event Processing” (CEP) we have had IBM trying to differentiate a subset called “Business Event Processing” when they acquired Aptsoft, and now analyst Charles Brett introduces comments on “Analytical Event Processing“.
But is “Analytical Event Processing” a very useful term? Indeed, what would “non-analytical” event processing be? Guess-based event processing? Random-reaction event processing? Or is this something to do with the fact that some CEP applications (usually regardless of CEP technology – stream processing, rules processing, etc) do what has been described as “event-based analytics“?
Reading Merv Adrian’s discussion with Charles on the topic, there seems to be some thoughts that event processing (whether A-, B-, or CEP) might start to reign in the dominance of data(base)-oriented processing. Already happening, for sure, although as the authors infer, the RDBMS will continue just fine as a data archive, backing store, etc. Reading between the lines, the discussion on the term could also be due to mis-/over-reading some vendors’ attempts at differentiation (and/or said vendors “competitive issues” in the CEP market…).
As to the future of the “AEP”, we shall wait and see! (Or rather, regardless of terminology, CEP vendors will just carry on delivering event processing solutions to customers via a number of different technologies, including predictive analytic technologies where relevant).
