Ubiquitous Nature of Event-Driven Approaches: A Retrospective View

This paper retrospectively analyzes the progress of event-based capability and their applicability in various domains. Although research on event-based approaches started in a humble manner with the intention of introducing triggers in database management systems for monitoring application state and to automate applications by reducing/eliminating user intervention, currently it has become a force to reckon with as it finds use in many diverse domains. This is primarily due to the fact that a large number of real-world applications are indeed event-driven and hence the paradigm is apposite. In this paper, we briefly overview the development of the ECA (or event-condition-action) paradigm. We briefly discuss the evolution of the ECA paradigm (or active capability) in relational and Object-oriented systems. We then describe several diverse applications where the ECA paradigm has been used effectively. The applications range from customized monitoring of web pages to specification and enforcement of access control policies using RBAC (role-based access control). The multitude of applications clearly demonstrate the ubiquitous nature of event-based approaches to problems that were not envisioned as the ones where the active capability would be applicable. Finally, we indicate some future trends that can benefit from the ECA paradigm.