Panel: Current State and Future of Event-Based Systems

Abstract

This chapter is a panel discussion in writing. The field of event-based systems finds researchers from a number of different backgrounds: distributed systems, streaming data, databases, middleware, and sensor networks. One of the consequences is that everyone comes to the field with a slightly different mindset and different expectations and goals. In this chapter, we try to capture some of the voices that are influential in our field. Seven panellists from academia and industry were invited to answer and discuss questions about event-based systems. The questions were distributed via email, to which each participant replied their initial set of answers. In a second round every panelist was given the opportunity to expand their statement and discuss the contributions of the other panellists. The questions asked can be grouped into two types. Questions in the first group refer to each participant’s understanding of the basic concepts of event-based systems (EBS), the pros and cons of EBS, typical assumptions of the field and how they understood EBS to fit into the overall landscape of software architectures. The second group of questions pointed to the future of EBS, possible killer applications and the challenges that EBS researchers in academia and industry need to address in the medium and long term. The next section gives each panellist’s initial statements as well as their comments to other participants’ contributions. Each participant’s section starts with a short introduction of the panellist and their work. In the final section, we compare and reflect on the statements and discussions that are presented by the seven panellists.