What is event-driven architecture in programming? And why do we use it? Today we dive into this way of programming and get to know what it’s all about.

What is event-driven architecture?

Event-driven architecture is a programming paradigm originating around the year 2000, which eventually replaced the traditional request-driven architecture that was employed in mainstream systems. Event-driven architecture uses a trigger mechanism, where any number of external state changes or checks results in actions being taken, which in itself can trigger another event, or simply communicate a message. With this architecture, you can then ‘decouple’ your applications and produce a series of microservices or modules as opposed to a single monolithic structure.

Using decoupled services, this event-driven architecture allows ‘event producers’ to make use of an ‘event router’ which will deliver the event based on a set of variables, to an ‘event consumer’ or sink, which is where a resulting action would typically occur. An everyday example of this may be;

●You clicking on this article with your mouse or trackpad ‘produced’ an event; the click,

●This was then ‘routed’ by your computer’s operating system to the web browser which was under your cursor,

●This web browser, or ‘consumer’, then handles that click and loads the page requested.

This of course is quite a simplification, as there would be a large number of concurrent events occurring all at once, but it’s most likely that your mouse, operating system, and web browser, are produced by different companies, aka, decoupled.

Benefits of event-driven architecture

Better scalability

Scalability is achieved by using decoupled services that ensure fault-tolerant processes. When one service fails to perform, remaining services will continue to function as they are interoperable. Regardless of the workload, your system will bounce back and adjust itself to the situation, giving you peace of mind and allowing you time to fix any issues.

Increased code speed

The event router autonomously pushes the events to consumers thus eliminating the need to write code for filtering and routing events. You will no longer need to provide coordination and communication between producers and consumers which accelerates the development cycle.

Forecasting

Event-driven architecture creates the perfect environment for real-time data analytics. Companies can discover common patterns, trends, and opportunities that allow business analysts to build accurate forecasts and make data-driven decisions. By obtaining valuable trends and forecasts, companies can modify their business strategies to achieve their goals and improve user experience.

Smoother auditing

Event routers are the centerpiece of the process and can define policies and ensure compliance. The policies can prescribe who can publish events and how and when they can be pushed in order to provide the utmost data security. Event routers also have control over permissions and restrict certain data access attempts.

Cost-efficiency

As events are being pushed on-demand when a certain event occurs in the router, companies can potentially save budget on network bandwidth consumption and CPU usage. You will no longer need to pay for continuous event monitoring since the event-driven architecture provides automatic push-based processes.

Shorter response time

Modern markets change quickly and sometimes unexpectedly. Using accurate data pattern identification followed by automatic notifications will put your business at a great competitive advantage. Companies that make smarter operational decisions practically in real-time have an opportunity to take advantage of the market trends before everyone else.

Asynchronous functionality

Asynchronous functions allow developers to let go of the traditional linear software processes as in event-driven architecture, events trigger further actions. Although this type of programming is more difficult and requires more professional expertise and thorough documentation, it provides more flexibility.

When should you use event-driven architecture?

When you have teams operating from different locations

Event-driven architecture is often used to coordinate systems from different products or business segments. This integration of a modern approach enables both systems and teams to operate autonomously and independently from each other while maintaining a unified goal, thus ensuring better scalability and flexibility at both a software and operational level for your business.

When you need to monitor a lot of resources

Event-driven architecture can help engineers to avoid constant monitoring of statuses or processes, such as storage utilisation, network connectivity, and synchronisation percentage. When these resource states change, if the right event-driven solution is in place, the engineer is instead immediately alerted. This allows both more efficient use of time and more rapid response to any situation that may require intervention.

When you have several systems that need to respond

You may already have a cohesive workforce, or proactive monitoring and alerting tightly integrated, but there can be simple operations that require multiple services or third parties involved after a certain step. Without the right foundations in place, this may be a cumbersome or otherwise manual process. It could be as simple as moving completed data to multiple external resources, alerting third parties to a significant change, or seeking approvals, but this is the type of stage typically more prone to human error, and also easier to automate.

What is next?

Event-driven architecture is the key to building resilient services that provide agility, scalability, and flexibility. The process of creating this architecture type can be complex and overwhelming, especially for beginners. CodeFirst is a software development company that is ready to accommodate your needs and offer customer-oriented solutions. Contract our team of engineers to receive a consultation and begin your next project.