Event streaming is the digital equivalent of the human body’s central nervous system. It is the technological foundation for the ‘always-on’ world where businesses are increasingly software-defined and automated, and where the user of software is more software.

In simple technical words, event streaming is the practice of capturing data in real-time from event sources like databases, sensors, mobile devices, cloud services, and software applications in the form of streams of events; storing these event streams durably for later retrieval; manipulating, processing, and reacting to the event streams in real-time as well as retrospectively; and routing the event streams to different destination technologies as needed. Event streaming thus ensures a continuous flow and interpretation of data so that the right information is at the right place, at the right time.

What can we use event streaming for ?

Event streaming is applied to a wide variety of use cases across industries and organizations. Its many examples include:

1. To process payments and financial transactions in real-time, such as in stock exchanges, banks, and insurances.
2. To track and monitor cars, trucks, fleets, and shipments in real-time, such as in logistics and the automotive industry.
3. To continuously capture and analyze sensor data from IoT devices or other equipment, such as in factories and wind parks.
4. To collect and immediately react to customer interactions and orders, such as in retail, the hotel and travel industry, and mobile applications.
5. To monitor patients in hospital care and predict changes in condition to ensure timely treatment in emergencies.
6. To connect, store, and make available data produced by different divisions of a company.
7. To serve as the foundation for data platforms, event-driven architectures, and microservices.