external presentations

Presentation from ispheres: http://www.ispheres.com; the VP of engineering Kal Krishnan gave a nice presentation, focussed on the event server piece. The core strength of the event server are:

1. EPL or event processing language with (IF-WHEN-THEN) syntax. This language is 'SQL' like but also maps very closely to java and compiles into java byte code.
2. Support both pull and push model for obtaining data from different disparate sources
3. Support of TIME_WINDOW(), LENGTH_WINDOW() constructs to detect events. In effect, this allows for filters to be built on moving averages, time constraints, even regression analysis results

Asked for reasons of inventing EPL: expressivity of above constructs not possible with straightforward SQL. There does exist support of persistence in the framework as well. The concept talked about three different streams:

Raw input ---(Stream A filter)-----> Analyze data---(Stream B filter)---->Conclude---(Stream C filter)---->Output

The company claims high performance, scalability and extensibility

Perf: cannot be verified since no standard benchmark program.
Scalability: Can be put on more powerful CPU or distribued across machines
Extensibility: different data sources, including even fields of a java bean object.

There are competing products in the market, including 'event SQL' framework from stonebreaker, another IBM effort as well (not known?)

There is effort on standardization: CEP or Complex events processing group; lot of potential for technology now and future.

My two ideas:

1. RFID space

2. Telecom perf and alarm mgmt