Aleri makes software to perform Complex Event Processing (CEP). Folks from Aleri recently asked if I would like to talk to them and learn more about the company and CEP, and I agreed. So last month, I spoke with John Morrell, the VP of Product Marketing at Aleri, and Jeff Wootton, the VP of Product Strategy at Aleri. Here is what I learned.

Getting to know Aleri and CEP

Before our discussion, I knew very little about CEP as a field. Morrell and Wootton described CEP as a “means to an end,” and the “end” is Continuous Intelligence. CEP stands in contrast to a data warehouse because CEP is designed to react to real-time conditions, while data warehouses provide a periodic overview of historical information. CEP is useful for detecting changes in trends and new trends and monitoring trends. For example, a government health agency might use CEP to locate flu outbreaks, or a retailer might use CEP to determine when to make a rush order of an item that is suddenly selling more quickly than normal. CEP sifts through the data to extract a trend from the noise and can be used to show both the velocity and the acceleration of a trend.

Aleri’s CEP offerings differentiate themselves from their competition by having a “data centric architecture” designed for data analysis. The systems are more versatile than rules-based engines and can continually adjust to changing situations. In addition to being able to monitor incoming data feeds, Aleri’s products can continually monitor data sets. They also stated that programmers find it easy to work with the Aleri products.

Aleri has a global presence and support, which allows it to work well with international companies. Aleri has a large ecosystem of products and a great community as well.

I enjoyed my conversation with Aleri, and I was glad to get to know both the company and their end of the industry better. I can definitely see how CEP can and should be integrated into a number of markets, and I look forward to hearing from readers with any experience with CEP or Aleri’s products.

J.Ja

Disclosure of Justin’s industry affiliations: Justin James has a contract with Spiceworks to write product buying guides. He is also under contract to OpenAmplify, which is owned by Hapax, to write a series of blogs, tutorials, and other articles.

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