Systems and/or methods for forecasting future behavior of event streams in complex event processing (CEP) environments

A complex event processing (CEP) system, comprising:

• at least one processor;
• a CEP engine under the control of at the least one processor;
• and
• at least one input adapter configured to receive an event stream including events and feed event data for the events from the event stream to the CEP engine;
• wherein the CEP engine comprises:
• at least one operator configured to directly or indirectly receive and process the event data for subsequent, direct or indirect, output to a system management application of the CEP system and/or an event consuming application or component in communication with the CEP system,
• at least one forecasting operator configured to directly or indirectly receive and process the at least one said event stream by:
• (a) for each received event in the event stream:
• updating a reference window indicative of a predefined temporal range during which the forecast is to be computed so that the reference window ends with the received event, the reference window moving with the event stream, and
• determining, by consulting a forecasting update policy, whether the forecast is to be triggered,
• in response to determining the forecast is to be generated, updating a forecasting window indicative of a temporal range in which events are to be forecasted;
• for the updated forecasting window and while a period of time associated with the forecasting window is not exceeded, (i) generating, via at least one processor, a plurality of forecasted events based on the updated reference window and (ii) inserting the plurality of forecasted events into the forecast window;
• and
• publishing the forecast window that includes the inserted plurality of forecasted events, and
• (b) directly or indirectly output the forecast to the system management application of the CEP system and/or an external application or component,
• wherein, for each update to the temporal range of the forecasting window, the reference window is updated multiple times.

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium tangibly storing instructions that are executable by at least one processor of a complex event processing (CEP) system, the stored instructions comprising instruction that are configured to cause the complex event processing (CEP) system to:

• accept an event stream including a plurality of events upon which a forecast is to be based;
• and
• for each received event in the event stream:
• update a reference window indicative of a predefined temporal range during which the forecast is to be computed so that the reference window ends with the received event, the reference window moving with the event stream;
• determine, by consulting a forecasting update policy that is stored on a memory device of the CEP system, whether the forecast is to be triggered;
• in response to determination that the forecast is to be generated, generate a forecasting window indicative of a temporal range in which events are to be forecasted;
• for the updated forecasting window and while the time period of the forecasting window is not exceeded, (a) generate a plurality of forecasted events based on the updated reference window and (b) insert the plurality of forecasted events into the forecast window;
• and
• publish the forecast window that includes the inserted plurality of forecasted events,
• wherein the forecasting update policy indicates that the forecasting window is updated only after multiple updates to the reference window have occurred.