What to call CEP
It seems that the CEP folks are still concerned about what to call themselves. There really are only three choices:
- Complex event processing
- Event processing
- Event stream processing
“Stream processing” might once have been on the list, but it has too many other meanings, and “streaming” adds more meanings yet.
“Complex” has the virtue of inertia; CEP is the closest thing the category has to an agreed-upon name. But few people want to buy technology that describes itself as being “complex.” And in any case it’s not clear how complex many of those events are. “Event stream processing” isn’t terribly well established, and to some extent it runs afoul of the same ambiguities as “stream processing.” What’s worse, those names lead to four-word product category names. Who really wants to market or hear about “complex event processing engines” or “event stream processing platforms”?
So let’s just call the category “event processing” and have done with it, OK? Products can, if they want, be “event processing somethings.” Names like that wouldn’t be any more of a mouthful than “data warehouse appliance,” and the latter category is doing pretty well for itself.
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