Adaptive CEP - A Prerequisite for CEP Success

Further affirmation that low latency execution is not the only motivator for decisions to deploy the Apama CEP platform is found in a recent quote from Yann L'Huillier, the CTO of Turquoise.  Turquoise is the London-based alternative trading venue that is using Apama for real-time market surveillance in a project that was managed by Progress Apama partner, Detica. 

In a quite interesting interview in InformationAge that speaks to the role of technology in jumpstarting the Turquoise effort to challenge the incumbents, L'Huillier explains "With regard to Apama and Detica, our thinking is that using a streaming engine with complex-event processing gives us a competitive edge, because we can change the way we read the market and adapt to the always-changing market conditions."

That has proven to be a common - and key - reason why organizations chose the Apama CEP platform.  CEP systems generally respond to conditions that they don't control, as the events are generated by external sources and the CEP system is monitoring what is happening via the events.  A successful CEP system must be adaptive, as the conditions that spawn the events are assuredly going to change.

The word "agility" has become hackneyed in the technology lexicon, but that really does describe the requirement.  As the Turquoise article suggests, it can be fundamental to competitive differentiation.  As a colleague recently noted to me, accuracy is as important as speed because without accuracy, technology merely accelerates the speed with which you get the wrong answer.  With the world changing as fast as it is, accuracy will be quite fleeting unless you can adapt quickly.