Streaming and complex event processing (CEP)

Discussion of complex event processing (CEP), aka event processing or stream processing – i.e., of technology that executes queries before data is ever stored on disk. Related subjects include:

Coral8
StreamBase
Truviso
Progress Apama

February 13, 2013

It’s hard to make data easy to analyze

It’s hard to make data easy to analyze. While everybody seems to realize this — a few marketeers perhaps aside — some remarks might be useful even so.

Many different technologies purport to make data easy, or easier, to an analyze; so many, in fact, that cataloguing them all is forbiddingly hard. Major claims, and some technologies that make them, include:

*Complex event/stream processing terminology is always problematic.

My thoughts on all this start:  Read more

November 5, 2012

Real-time confusion

I recently proposed a 2×2 matrix of BI use cases:

Let me now introduce another 2×2 matrix of analytic scenarios:

My point is that there are at least three different cool things people might think about when they want their analytics to be very fast:

There’s also one slightly boring one that however drives a lot of important applications: Read more

August 20, 2012

In-memory, (hybrid) memory-centric DBMS — three analytic glossary draft entries

These are three closely-related draft entries for the DBMS2 analytic glossary. Please comment with any ideas you have for their improvement!

1. We coined the term memory-centric data management to comprise several kinds of technology that manage data in RAM (Random Access Memory), including:

Related link

2. An in-memory DBMS is a DBMS designed under the assumption that substantially all database operations will be performed in RAM (Random Access Memory). Thus, in-memory DBMS form a subcategory of memory-centric data management systems.

Ways in which in-memory DBMS are commonly different from those that query and update persistent storage include: Read more

July 15, 2012

Memory-centric data management when locality matters

Ron Pressler of Parallel Universe/SpaceBase pinged me about a data grid product he was open sourcing, called Galaxy. The idea is that a distributed RAM grid will allocate data, not randomly or via consistent hashing, but rather via a locality-sensitive approach. Notes include:

The whole thing is discussed in considerable detail in a blog post and a especially in a Hacker News comment thread. There’s also an error-riddled TechCrunch article. Read more

April 7, 2012

Many kinds of memory-centric data management

I’m frequently asked to generalize in some way about in-memory or memory-centric data management. I can start:

Getting more specific than that is hard, however, because:

Consider, for example, some of the in-memory data management ideas kicking around. Read more

November 28, 2011

Terminology: Data mustering

I find myself in need of a word or phrase that means bring data together from various sources so that it’s ready to be used, where the use can be analysis or operations. The first words I thought of were “aggregation” and “collection,” but they both have other meanings in IT. Even “data marshalling” has a specific meaning different from what I want. So instead, I’ll go with data mustering.

I mean for the term “data mustering” to encompass at least three scenarios:

Let me explain what I mean by each.  Read more

November 10, 2011

StreamBase LiveView — push-based real-time BI

My clients at StreamBase are coming out with a new product line called LiveView, and I agreed they could launch it via this blog. Key points about StreamBase LiveView Version 1.0 include:

The basic StreamBase LiveView pipeline goes something like:   Read more

November 10, 2011

StreamBase catchup

While I was cryptic in my general CEP/streaming catchup, I’ll say a bit more regarding StreamBase in particular. At the highest level, non-technically:

Read more

November 10, 2011

Very brief CEP/streaming catchup

When I agreed to launch the StreamBase LiveView product via DBMS 2, I planned to catch up on the whole CEP/streaming area first. Due to the power and internet outages last week, that didn’t entirely happen. So I’ll do a bit of that now, albeit more cryptically than I hoped and intended.

Meanwhile, if you want to see technically nitty-gritty posts about the CEP/streaming area, you may want to look at my CEP/streaming coverage circa 2007-9, based on conversations with (among others) Mike Stonebraker, John Bates, and Mark Tsimelzon.

August 25, 2011

Renaming CEP … or not

One of the less popular category names I deal with is “Complex Event Processing (CEP)”. The word “complex” looks weird, and many are unsure about the “event processing” part as well. CEP does have one virtue as a name, however — it’s concise.

The other main alternative is to base the name on “stream processing” instead.* The CEP-or-whatever industry is split between these choices, with StreamBase currently favoring “CEP” (despite its company name), IBM emphatically favoring “stream”, and Sybase seemingly trying to have things both ways.

*And then, of course, there is “event stream processing”, regarding which please see below.

Read more

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