The winning combination for real-time insights: Messaging and event-driven architecture

In
today’s
fast-paced
digital
economy,
businesses
are
fighting
to
stay
ahead
and
devise
new
ways
to
streamline
operations,
enhance
responsiveness
and
work
with
real-time
insights.
We
are
now
in
an
era
defined
by
being
proactive,
rather
than
reactive.
In
order
to
stay
ahead,
businesses
need
to
enable
proactive
decision
making—and
this
stems
from
building
an
IT
infrastructure
that
provides
the
foundation
for
the
availability
of
real-time
data.

A
core
part
of
the
solution
needed
comes
from
messaging
infrastructure
and
many
businesses
already
have
a
strong
foundation
in
place.
Among
others,
IBM®
MQ
has
been
recognized
as
the
top
messaging
broker
because
of
its
simplicity
of
use,
flexibility,
scalability,
security
and
many
other
reasons.
A
messaging
queue
technology
is
essential
for
businesses
to
stay
afloat,
but
building
out
event-driven
architecture
fueled
by
messaging
might
just
be
your
x-factor.

Messaging
that
can
be
relied
on

IBM
MQ
facilitates
the
reliable
exchange
of
messages
between
applications
and
systems,
making
sure
that
critical
data
is
delivered
promptly
and
exactly
once
to
protect
against
duplicate
or
lost
data.
For
30
years,
IBM
MQ
users
have
realized
the
immense
value
of
investing
in
this
secure
messaging
technology—but
what
if
it
could
go
further?

IBM
MQ
boasts
the
ability
to
seamlessly
integrate
with
other
processing
tools
with
its
connectors
(including
Kafka
connectors),
APIs
and
standard
messaging
protocols.
Essentially,
it
sets
an
easy
stage
for
building
a
strong
real-time
and
fault-tolerant
technology
stack
businesses
once
could
only
dream
of.

IBM
MQ
is
an
industry
leader
for
a
reason,
there’s
no
doubt
about
that.
Investing
in
future-proof
solutions
is
critical
for
businesses
trying
to
thrive
in
such
a
dynamic
environment.
IBM
MQ’s
30
years
of
success
and
reliability
in
a
plethora
of
use
cases
is
not
something
that
should
be
ignored,
especially
when
it
has
been
continuously
reinventing
itself
and
proving
its
adaptability
as
different
technologies
have
emerged
with
its
flexible
deployment
options
(available
on-prem,
on
cloud
and
hybrid).
However,
IBM
MQ
and
Apache
Kafka
can
sometimes
be
viewed
as
competitors,
taking
each
other
on
in
terms
of
speed,
availability,
cost
and
skills.
Will
picking
one
over
the
other
provide
the
optimum
solution
for
all
your
business
operations?

MQ
and
Apache
Kafka:
Teammates

Simply
put,
they
are
different
technologies
with
different
strengths,
albeit
often
perceived
to
be
quite
similar.
Among
other
differences,
MQ
focuses
on
precise
and
asynchronous
instant
exchange
of
data
with
directed
interactions,
while
Apache
Kafka
focuses
on
high
throughput,
high
volume
and
data
processing
in
sequence
to
reduce
latency.
So,
if
MQ
is
focused
on
directed
interactions
and
Kafka
is
focused
on
gaining
insights,
what
might
the
possibilities
be
if
you
used
them
together?

We
know
IBM
MQ
excels
in
ensuring
precision
and
reliability
in
message
delivery,
making
it
perfect
for
critical
workloads.
The
focus
is
on
trusted
delivery,
regardless
of
the
situation
and
provision
of
instantaneous
responses.
If
combined
with
Apache
Kafka’s
high
availability
and
streamlined
data
collection—enabling
applications
or
other
processing
tools
to
spot
patterns
and
trends—businesses
would
immediately
be
able
to
harness
the
MQ
data
along
with
other
streams
of
events
from
Kafka
clusters
to
develop
real-time
intelligent
solutions.

The
more
intelligence,
the
better

Real-time
responsiveness
and
intelligence
should
be
injected
as
much
as
possible
into
every
aspect
of
your
technology
stacks.
With
increasing
amounts
of
data
inundating
your
business
operations,
you
need
a
streaming
platform
that
helps
you
monitor
the
data
and
act
on
it
before
it’s
too
late.
The
core
of
building
this
real-time
responsiveness
lies
in
messaging,
but
its
value
can
be
expanded
through
event-driven
architectures.

Consider
a
customer-centric
business
responding
to
thousands
of
orders
and
customer
events
coming
through
every
minute.
With
a
strong
messaging
infrastructure
that
prevents
messages
from
falling
through
the
cracks,
your
teams
can
build
customer
confidence
through
message
resilience—no
orders
get
lost
and
you
can
easily
find
them
in
your
queue
manager.
But,
with
event-driven
technologies,
you
can
add
an
extra
layer
of
stream
processing
to
detect
trends
and
opportunities,
increase
your
customer
retention,
or

adapt
to
dynamic
pricing.

Event-driven
technologies
have
been
emerging
in
our
digital
landscape,
starting
with
Apache
Kafka
as
an
industry
leader
in
event
streaming.
However,

IBM
Event
Automation’s
advanced
capabilities

leverage
the
power
of
Apache
Kafka
and
help
enterprises
bring
their
event-driven
architectures
to
another
level
through
event
processing
and
event
endpoint
management
capabilities.
It
takes
a
firehose
of
raw
data
streams
coming
from
the
directed
interactions
of
all
your
applications
and
Kafka
connectors
or
Kafka
topics,
allowing
analysts
and
wider
teams
to
derive
insights
without
needing
to
write
java,
SQL,
or
other
codes.
In
other
words,
it
provides
the
necessary
context
for
your
business
events.

With
a
low-code
and
intuitive
user
interface
and
functionality,
businesses
can
empower
less
technical
users
to
fuel
their
work
with
real-time
insights.
This
significantly
lowers
the
skills
barrier
by
enabling
business
technologists
to
use
the
power
of
events
without
having
to
go
to
advanced
developer
teams
first
and
have
them
pull
information
from
a
data
storage.
Consequently,
users
can
see
the
real-time
messages
and
cleverly
work
around
them
by
noticing
order
patterns
and
perhaps
even
sending
out
promotional
offers
among
many
other
possibilities.

At
the
same
time,
event
endpoint
management
capabilities
help
IT
administrators
to
control
who
can
access
data
by
generating
unique
authentication
credentials
for
every
user.
They
can
enable
self-service
access
so
users
can
keep
up
with
relevant
events,
but
they
can
also
add
layers
of
controls
to
protect
sensitive
information.
Uniquely,
it
allows
teams
the
opportunity
to
explore
the
possibilities
of
events
while
also
controlling
for
sensitive
information.

Take
the
next
step
for
your
business.

With
IBM
MQ
as
a
strong
middleware
messaging
system
and
IBM
Event
Automation’s
open-source
event
processing
and
event
endpoint
management
capabilities
that
enhance
Apache
Kafka’s
event
streaming,
real-time
insights
are
at
your
fingertips.
Interested
in
learning
more?

Sign
up
for
our
webinar
to
see
how
these
two
advanced
technologies
are
truly
suited
for
success
in
our
digital
economy.

Webinar:
Seamless
integration
of
IBM
MQ
and
Apache
Kafka
for
enhanced
event-driven
architectures