Event Processor tracks State of Objects

An object can be anything you decide to maintain data about; a human, a train, an order. When things relevant to these objects happen, the data about these objects may need to be changed to represent the new situation; a human gets ill, a train gets delayed, an order gets rejected. Things that happen are events.

Data about objects is maintained in databases. So events may trigger database updates. The database persists the state of objects. You may choose to persist the state-history (data warehouses), or not.

So far so good, we got our applications to handle these updates based on simple or complex algorithms. But things might get complicated in highly active operational environments with near real-time processing requirements. Consider the following cases.

The state change of an object is derived by correlating multiple events occurring within a time-frame.
A trains new estimated time of arrival at B depends on (1) trains departure time at A, AND (2) speed limit between A and B due to heavy weather, AND (3) congestion approaching B (because of other trains departed earlier from A and not yet arrived at B).

The state change of an object is derived from patterns in multiple events occurring within a time-frame.
Two gate passages are detected with the same access token within a time-frame that is too short to travel between the two gates. This pattern detects - in real-time - an illegal copy of the access token (new state: blacklisted) and may alert authorized personnel on duty to arrest the passenger instantly.

The state of objects changes quicker then a database can follow.
A huge number of stock quotes to be traded changes within milliseconds.

Actions are to be started instantly based on a specific state change of an object.
Inform passengers their train will get delayed (mind: the action is the result of a real-time correlation of multiple event types within certain time-frames, see above).

In case of high volume state changes, real-time event correlation or real-time event pattern recognition, wouldn’t it be a good idea to deploy a dedicated service in your SOA to process events, hold states and publish new derived events?

An event processor is a service that pulls multiple streams of event data through its memory for comparison. Boolean logic detects correlations and/or the occurrence of predefined patterns across multiple event instances within certain time-frames. The event processor may also instantiate the objects you want to track some predefined states of (e.g. delay states of all running trains), likely in memory. Boolean logic snaps relevant state changes of the object instances and will trigger instantiation of the new state (that can be queried). All in real-time and instantly within a few clock-cycles by applying boolean algebra and truth tables. Based on the results actions can be triggered including executing tasks, start processes (BPM), publishing derived events and new object states or driving business activity monitors (BAM).

If you are able to model the event data being idempotent this service will not only be potentially very powerful, but very robust as well.