This IBM® Redguide™ publication introduces a Conceptual Model for Event Processing. This model is described in terms of an underlying Event Processing Network and an associated Conceptual Architecture for Event Processing, which provides a conceptual view of the event processing architecture and the key components required to build useful event processing systems.

We begin with an introduction to the concepts of business event processing, and its growing importance in the industry, to provide the basis and motivation for a conceptual model. We provide an explanation of the Event Processing Network, and of our Event Processing Conceptual Architecture and its components, which represent the building blocks that can be used to support an implementation of the Conceptual Model. We describe the flow through the conceptual model, with examples to make this concrete.

Throughout this paper, we illustrate the concepts using practical scenarios. We discuss in some detail three scenarios that are then used to validate the conceptual model, and to demonstrate that the model is sufficient to address the needs of these disparate and non-trivial event processing use cases.

First published by IBM developerWorks at http://www.ibm.com/developerWorks