Flow Architectures

Chapter 6. Building for a Flow Future

I hope that by now you see the power and the utility of event-driven integration, and the likelihood of flow. I’ve laid out the vision, made a case for why businesses will be eager to adopt that vision, and discussed the architectures and technologies involved as well as the mechanisms that bring us from today’s event-driven marketplace to the WWF.

However, I’ve also pointed out that we are a good 5 to 10 years out from the full network effects of flow. You can’t “implement flow” today because there are no accepted de facto standard interfaces or protocols for event-driven integration across organizational boundaries. Furthermore, other key technologies of event-driven integration (such as data provenance and end-to-end security) have yet to be implemented, much less accepted as standards. So, what can an organization do today to prepare to leverage the power and value of flow?

There are three critical things to do right now if you want to be ready for this future. They are:

• Identify the need in your organization for near-real-time processing in response to changing state within or outside of your organization’s software systems.

• Adopt an “event-first” strategy for architecting and operating the applications and services that address those needs, including where integration is required with outside entities.

• Consider participating in the creation of flow standards, related technologies, or the networks of organizations improving efficiency ...