bbc2010 is a process, rules and analyst conference in Alexandria in the DC area this week, and seems to be very well attended. Upstairs is the co-located Predictive Analytics World conference, where the TIBCO Spotfire stand seems to be very busy. Downstairs are the rule engine / management vendors, with a sprinkling of modelling tools (and, er, Microsoft showing off Visio). Not much for the CEP community?
First, I spot a rule engine vendor announcing the “simplifying of complex event processing”. It seems they have some customers applying their rule engine to event sources (although I’m not sure what they are simplifying – compared to what, I wonder?).
Next, the Rule Vendor panel, hosted by IDC’s Stephen Hendrick. An end-user asks the question “How does CEP relate and compare with what you do?”. The panelists squirm in their seats, visibly pale, and there is silence. OK, I made that last bit up: they all made a good effort on the response. For example, IBM’s Brett Stineman commented that many IBM customers have been asking for combined event processing and decisioning in the same platform – which makes plenty of sense. Stephen also makes it clear that IDC are seeing a lot of interest in “sense and respond” applications from their industry customers.
After this I find I am late for the BPM vendor panel, and enter to find Progress’ Rick Geneva and then Pega’s Stephen Zisk introducing themselves with comments on the need for event processing and event-centric views. I wonder if perhaps they have renamed this the “Event Processing” panel while I wasn’t looking. Sanity returns with Singularity’s Dermot McCauley – a Case Management company. I flick through the Singularity handout. What? It talks about “sensing – recognising opportunities and threats”. “Goal-driven” – something I can use state models to define goal states and their intermediatories. “Knowledge-intensive”, meaning lots of rules. “Highly variable processes”. “Long running”, so stateful processes. Etc etc. So, more than a little overlap here too.
Seems CEP has come of age, and maybe next year we will have a Business Event Forum to join the Rule, Process and Analyst Forums at this conference. Sounds like attendees and vendors expect it!
