More companies are recognizing the importance of digital tools to get ahead in 2021. Whether it is finding pathways through data sets or being able to quickly address customer issues, architecture is needed for a business of any size to be able to handle the workload. That’s where event-driven architecture comes into play, as organizations work with contractors to design templates suited to the company’s needs. Let’s take a closer look into what this architecture may entail.
What is an event?
In order to better understand event-driven architecture, we must first understand events. An event is a change of state in key business systems. This can be a range of things from someone purchasing a product at the grocery store to a passenger checking in for a flight. This variant is usually met by a message because while the event is the occurrence, the message is the traveling notification relaying the occurrence. In an architectural system, an event triggers one or more actions or processes in response to the occurrence.
One response might be simply for receptors in an architectural structure to log the event for monitoring purposes. This is also the case in other suggestions like an email to reset the password on a certain account or to close a sales ticket after a transaction. With event-driven architecture, when an event notification is sent, the system captures it, acknowledging the change in state and awaiting replies to whoever requests it, whenever they request it. Applications built around such architecture enable more agile, scalable, and responsible applications.
What is event-driven architecture?
Event-driven architecture, or EDA, is a software design pattern that enables an organization to detect important business moments throughout the business expansion. EDA acts in real-time or near real-time, replacing the traditional “request/response” architecture where services would have to wait for a reply before they could move on to other tasks. The flow of EDA is run by events and it’s designed to respond to them or carry out some action in response. Event-driven architecture is often referred to as “asynchronous”, meaning that the sender and the recipient don’t have to wait for each other to take on the next step.
There has been a movement from focusing on data at rest to focusing on events. This architecture is designed to pull all data like PDFs, transcripts, and move away from the traditional model of data as a source of truth. The shift to EDA means moving from that data-centric model to an event-centric model. Event-driven architecture still emphasizes data, but the events and occurrences are highlighted more than the actual numbers and statistics. EDA makes sure that responding to these events as they happen is the priority, then highlighting analytics as to how businesses can better address these events with greater efficiency.
How does EDA work?
The event-driven architecture breaks down into three parts: Producer, consumer, and broker. The broker can be optional if the communication in EDA is being maintained through a single producer and a single consumer. For example, a producer that is sending only to a database to store events for analysis would not require a broker. Most commonly in organizations, there are multiple sources sending out all types of events with one or more consumers interested in some or all of those events.
Retailers, for example, collect all of their purchases from all of their stores across the United States. These events are fed into their EDA to monitor for fraudulent charges, working with credit card processes to flag any issues with a customer. In manufacturing, there’s a plethora of data coming off the equipment in real-time. A proper EDA allows companies of any size to predict failures and schedule maintenance. There’s plenty for an event-driven architecture to offer, regardless of the sector and size of an organization
