Event Sourcing

Event sourcing adds to the flexibility of CQRS by relying upon the events as our source of truth. Events are now historical facts that we can use to calculate the current state in ways that we did not originally intend. In this way, event sourcing acts similar to a financial ledger.

Event NameEvent ValueAccount Balance
account-openedAccount XYZ opened by user John Doe$0.00
money-depositedJohn Doe deposited $500$500.00
check-clearedCheck #1127 cleared for $27.15$472.85
cash-withdrawn$100 cash withdrawn from ATM #243$372.85

In this example we have four events that have been stored. Consider that a new business requirement is added to track money outflow from accounts. There is no way to do this immediately if the current state is all that is persisted (i.e., the current account balance).

However, because our source of truth is these events rather than a simple balance, it is easy to add the business logic after the fact and calculate what we need from the persisted events.

Event NameEvent ValueAccount BalanceOutflow
account-openedAccount XYZ opened by user John Doe$0.00$0.00
money-depositedJohn Doe deposited $500$500.00$0.00
check-clearedCheck #1127 cleared for $27.15$472.85$27.15
cash-withdrawn$100 cash withdrawn from ATM #243$372.85$127.15

In this way, we have used the persisted events to provide new business information that otherwise would not have been available. In essence we have turned back time and we can now use new logic to compute states that would otherwise be impossible to know.