Middle Ware

Middleware Technology

Rogers State University

Emerging Technologies

TECH 3023

Middleware Technology

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 1

Brief History of EAI/Middleware 2

What is involved in EAI/Middleware? 3

Application Programming Interface (API) 4

Middleware/EAI Basics 5

Middleware and Computer Telephony 6

Java Middleware - Evolving Use of EAI Technology 7

Middleware Usage Considerations 9

Middleware Developmental Stage 9

Middleware Costs, Limitations, and Economic Outlook 10

EAI/Middleware Market Leaders and Sample Middleware Vendors and Earnings 11

Market Leaders 11

Sample EAI/Middleware Vendors and Earnings 11

Conclusion 12

Potential Challenges of Middleware/EAI 12

The Future of Java Middleware 12

The Future of Middleware/EAI 12

APPENDIX A a

Webliography/Bibliography i

TABLE OF FIGURES

Middleware Software "Bus" Architecture 1

Legacy Enterprise Situation 2

Middleware/EAI Enterprise Solution 3

Basic API Architecture 5

TAPI facilitates IP Telephony, which enables voice, data, and video over existing LANs, WANs, and the Internet. 7

Introduction

Middleware, which is quickly becoming synonymous with enterprise applications integration (EAI), is software that is invisible to the user. It takes two or more different applications and makes them work seamlessly together. This is accomplished by placing middleware between layers of software to make the layers below and on the sides work with each other (Figure 1). On that broad definition, middleware could be almost any software in a layered software stack. Further, middleware is a continually evolving term. Since much of the software business is driven through the perceptions of the "hottest" current technologies, many companies are giving their software the name "middleware" because it is popular.

Middleware, or EAI, products enable information to be shared in a seamless real-time fashion across multiple functional departments, geographies and applications. Benefits include better customer service, accurate planning and forecasting, and reduced manual re-entry and associated data inaccuracies.

Middleware is essential to migrating mainframe applications to client/server applications, or to Java or internet-protocol based applications, and to providing for communication across heterogeneous platforms. This technology began to evolve during the 1990s to provide for interoperability in support of the move to client/server architectures. [1] There are two primary applications for middleware using any of the above middleware initiatives: Computer Telephony and Software Interfaces such as via Java based middleware applications. In this discussion of middleware, we will explore both uses.

Figure 1: Middleware Software "Bus" Architecture

Brief History of EAI/Middleware

Enterprise applications, from as early as the 1960s through the late 1970s, were simple in design and functionality, developed largely in part to end repetitive tasks. "There was no thought whatsoever given to the integration of corporate data. The entire objective was to replicate manual procedures on the computer." [2]

By the 1980s, several corporations were beginning to understand the value and necessity for application integration. Challenges arose, though, as many corporate IT staff members attempted to redesign already implemented applications to make them appear as if they were integrated. Examples include trying to perform operational transaction processing (associated with enterprise resource planning (ERP) system functionality) on systems designed for informational data processing (data warehousing functionality).

As ERP applications became much more prevalent in the 1990s, there was a need for corporations to be able to leverage already existing applications and data within the ERP system; this could only be done by introducing EAI (Figures 2 & 3). "Companies once used client/server technology to build departmental applications, but later realized the gains in linking multiple business processes." [3] Other issues driving the EAI market include the further proliferation of packaged applications, applications that addressed the potential problems of the Year 2000, supply chain management/business-to-business (B2B) integration, streamlined business processes, web application integration, and overall technology advances within EAI development. [4]

Figure 2: Legacy Enterprise Situation

Figure 3: Middleware/EAI Enterprise Solution

What is involved in EAI/Middleware?

EAI is very involved and complex, and incorporates every level of an enterprise system - its architecture, hardware, software and processes. EAI involves integration at the following levels:

* Business Process Integration (BPI): When integrating business processes, a corporation must define, enable and manage the processes for the exchange of enterprise information among diverse business systems.