On virtual vs. real in event processing

As a follow on to my last posting on virtualization of event processing, one of the frequently asked questions, and maybe somewhat open question can we get really to platform independent models that can be directly compiled to implementation of our choice in fully automatic way. This is one of the major topics I am investigating recently. Two issues are involved: Is it possible to automatically compile to a specific platform that may be semantically incompatible with the platform independent model, the second issue is whether we can create an efficient implementation without taking more platform specific considerations. The answer lies within the compilation process from the platform independent model into the specific platform. This was not really done in event processing yet, but problems of the same magnitude have been handled in other areas, and we intend to leverage the experience of people who have done it in order to see how far this can go. As a related issue, Jim Odell continued his series on event processing and agent technology, hosted in the TIBCO CEP BLOG .

Since the platform independent model we are using has "event processing agents" as its major building block, agent oriented implementation is the most natural one, and the compilation to such a model will be straightforward, however, the platform independent model should also be compilable to centralized implementations, where the agents are all hidden inside a single run-time artifact. My guess is that the shift to agent oriented implementations will happen gradually, I'll talk about it when I'll present my view on "event processing - seven years from now" in the OMG event processing consortium meeting next month. I'll write more in the future on the compilation from model to implementation as we'll get progress in that project,