what is event based data integration?

Question

Please help me to understand what is event based data integration in simple layman term with some examples? How it is different from other form of data integration. Some sample use cases will be additional help.

Thanks, Rajneesh

Answer 1

It's essentially very simple at it's core.

In Event-driven integrations we're more interested in sharing a change in one system that might trigger an action in another system. We usually share a small amount of data (events are generally small containers of data). In essence, an event in one system is triggering an action in another. An example from the top of my head is, say we have a support call completed and we want to trigger an anonymous employee satisfaction survey. If these are separate systems, once the support call is completed, an event may be fired to the other system to trigger the survey process. We probably only share the channel of communication with this second system and nothing about the support call. The second system doesn't really care.

In Data-driven integrations we're more interested in keeping systems in sync. Data in one system changes and we're interested in replicating this change in data to other systems. It doesn't necessarily cause an action on the second system. An example would be that we probably want to keep our CRM system and logistics system in sync in terms of customer shipping addresses. Once this info gets updates via CRM, data gets replicated to the logistics system. It's possible that no further action is taken at that point in time.

Maybe it might help to think in terms of the scope of data exchange. Events are usually very small and carry just enough information to query further if needed. Say we might fire an event from a document management system saying a document is approved, and the event would contain only the document ID and the state change. If the receiving system needs more info, they would call back with this identifier for further details. In data-driven exchange, we would likely replicate all data.