A Truce at the CEP Front

09-20-2008

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A Truce at the CEP Front

Louis Lovas
09-19-2008 05:29 PM
A Truce at the CEP Front

I am a bit of a history buff and often times I'm reminded of some historical event when reading about current events. This inclination I have can easily be applied to the meltdown of the global financial markets we see happening all around us. The lessons of the past should be constant reminders of how we should behave now and in the future. I've always thought a degree in history should be a prerequisite to a political life, armed with such knowledge would clearly provide guidance to govern wisely. Maybe our business leaders should follow a similar career path.

I've just attended my first EPTS Symposium. It was the Technical Society's 4th annual get together. If you're unfamiliar with this organization, it's purpose is to promote event processing technologies through academic research and industry participation. The organization has a number of working groups that have contributed greatly to the overall awareness of event processing. You can read more about the EPTS at their website.

The symposium was well attended by members of both academia and industry. All the major CEP vendors were there and it was the first time I've been in a setting where the atmosphere was completely non-competitive. It was a truce of sorts. While we typically wage war in the virtual battlefield in a land-grab for customers, for 2 days we discussed vision, standards and use-cases. We debated ideas, but we also laughed, ate and drank together. It was general camaraderie. As I mentioned, history is one of my interests and these two days reminded me of the 1914 Christmas Truce where the Germans and the Brits crawled out of their trenches and met in the no man's land to celebrate Christmas together. The guns fell silent that night in 1914 and for the 2 days of the symposium the virtual guns of competition also fell silent.

Come Monday we'll all be back at the war again. But for a short while it was fun. To see the face of the enemy unmasked, to get to know him, to share an idea and a drink was genuinely uplifting. We found common ground in our desire to see event processing become a main stream technology.