Upperware

Middleware, defined broadly, consists of the intersection of all the things that applications developers do not want to do with all that network engineers do not want to do. As such, there are numerous services that applications would like to utilize rather than having to perform those functions themselves. These services can be roughly grouped into three categories, as described below.

• Business Application Middleware - Typically businesses are seeking extended tool sets with which to construct modular accounting or transactional applications. Four services are frequently mentioned in this category: object resource brokering (to find business data in distributed environments); message handling (both asynchronous and synchronously between processes); transaction monitoring (to perform audit functions); and application gateways (such as X.500 to SMTP). These tools are being developed by major computer companies are will find their way into administrative systems in higher education. Good references to business application middleware abound on the network. Among them are the Electronic Messaging Association (http://www.ema.org), the International Middleware Association (http://www.moma-inc.org) and the Securities Industry Middleware Council (http://www.simc-inc.org).
• Research Application Middleware - Complex networked computing environments are being developed to support scientific data acquisition, processing and management among high-end and unique resources. Supercomputers, advanced networks, network storage systems and specialized scientific instruments are being connected together into fabrics to address particular research agendas. To manage this environment requires a number of advanced services such as coscheduling of networked resources, bandwidth brokers, library synchronization, and database discovery. Good references to this area can be found at http://legion.virginia.edu and at http://www.globus.org.
• Ubiquitous Computing Tools - To achieve "anywhere, anytime, anyhow" computing, users will need to be presented with a consistent, customized interface while employing a variety of devices from a variety of locations. While such mobility, portability and ubiquity will depend heavily on authentication and directory services, additional protocols and API's need to be established. For example, standard sets of data will need to be moved frequently and securely between devices and centralized directories. Mechanisms are also needed to change attribute preferences depending on the characteristics of the device being used. References are harder to find. One is http://andrew2.andrew.cmu.edu/minotaur/. Additional references are welcome and should be sent to the webmaster for this site.