Maturity model for event processing

This slide is taken from the tutorial that Jeff Adkins and myself are planned to deliver exactly a week from today in Arlington, Texas - DEBS 2013.    It describes our view about "maturity model of event processing - IT view", showing the status of event processing use in an organization.  This follows the CMMI models.  

This model is used to evaluate the current status and determine next steps.  I guess that most organizations are in  levels 1 and 2.       This is first draft -- will be  glad to get comments. 

Event processing in simulation mode

You are probably familiar with the Microsoft flight simulator, that is seen in the picture, and indeed simulators became very common both in games and in training - such as pilot training which for many years heavily use simulators.   


In a recent blog James Taylor has written about the difficulty to validate new strategies, since strategic decision is translated to multiple tactical actions and possibly large number of operational actions. 

One of the possibilities to validate that the operational actions are consistent with the strategic planning is the use of simulation, where external events are simulated, and an event processing system is being used as a simulated business activity monitoring that checks the operational action results.   This requires the ability to codify the strategic decisions as  a collection of KPI (key performance indicators), which is typically doable.
Building the simulated BAM is more challenging,  first it requires some enhancements on event processing technology (on which I'll write in a later post), then it require to codify the operational actions and their effect on KPIs into the system.    I view event processing systems with sophisticated capabilities as a kernel for simulation and validation systems, not only in a corporate strategy level, but also in larger societies, simulating social processes,  or the impact of government policies.    One of the directions to pursue further - more about this direction later.