Event-Driven Architecture
Event-Driven Architecture (EDA) is a software design pattern where applications communicate by producing and reacting to events rather than making direct calls to each other. An event represents something that happened: a customer placed an order, a sensor detected motion, or a payment was processed. Services publish events to a message broker, and other services subscribe to events they care about. For non-technical readers, think of the difference between a phone call and a notice board. Traditional systems are like phone calls: one system directly calls another and waits for an answer. Event-driven systems are like posting notes on a board: a service announces what happened, and any interested service can read it and act. This decoupling makes systems more flexible and resilient. EDA enables loose coupling between components, meaning services can be developed, deployed, and scaled independently. It also supports asynchronous processing, where work happens in the background without blocking users. Modern implementations typically use message brokers like Apache Kafka, RabbitMQ, or cloud services like Azure Event Hub.
Official WebsiteWhen to use Event-Driven Architecture
Use Event-Driven Architecture when building systems that need to be highly scalable, loosely coupled, or responsive to real-time changes. It's valuable for microservices architectures, IoT applications, real-time analytics, and systems where different teams own different services and need to evolve independently.
EDA is particularly appropriate when you need to integrate multiple systems, handle high volumes of transactions, or build workflows that span organisational boundaries. It's less suitable for simple applications or when strong consistency is required between every operation.
Why choose Event-Driven Architecture?
Teams choose Event-Driven Architecture for its scalability and flexibility. Because services are decoupled, they can be developed and deployed independently, speeding up delivery. The asynchronous nature handles load spikes gracefully and improves resilience: if one service is slow, others continue working. EDA also creates a natural audit trail of everything that happened in the system.
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