The Middleware Riddle

What is it? Why is it? And how can you leverage its power?

Edmund X. DeJesus, Senior Editor

When you think of frightening places, your server closet probably isn't one. But fear has many forms. Is that the ghost of mainframe database past? Is that the multiheaded API monster? Are those the four protocols of the apocalypse?

Maybe that's a bit silly, but programmers today face impossible tasks: dealing with multiple APIs, making applications portable to any network, connecting to any database. All the "standards" that were supposed to make their lives easier didn't. Instead, they must know the specifics of each one to create their applications. Nobody has time f or this mess. And that is what middleware is for: to make the muddle in the back room sufficiently abst ract, which in turn enables real people to write applications for it.

Middleware succeeds in this task by providing five main services: hardware independence, interchangeability of key software components (e.g., DBMSes), network independence, operational savings (i.e., some middleware facilitates manual load balancing), and administrative savings (e.g., if you need to redeploy a server piece to a different box, you can simply change its location in the middleware component).

We zero in on cross-platform access to databases in this State of the Art. John R. Rymer tackles the task of defining middleware, and differentiating among products, in "The Muddle in the Middle." In "Middle(ware) Management," Salvatore Salamone offers tips for anyone buying or implementing middleware solutions. Finally, John Kador looks at where middleware may be heading in "The Ultimate Middleware." His ideas may surprise you.

Middleware Diversity

The te rm middleware might refer to anything from your cerebellum to the herds of wild electrons that are galloping along silicon mesas. To make it even more confusing--if that's indeed possible--different areas of computing use the same term differently. Here's a sampling of some other middleware technologies.

A cottage industry is growing up around mobile and remote-access methodologies. The goal is to ease the strains of remote connection. Another example: telephony middleware. Systems--typically APIs for connecting telephone and data networks, and videoconferencing--are coming to you from industry heavyweights and newcomers alike.

Document management has its middleware, too. These APIs receive documents from multiple sources, store them, and provide controlled access and editing services.

It seems any difficult task is a target for middleware, even creating graphics. Writing GUIs has never been easy--especially 3-D GUIs, for frivolous games to serious business applications.

N o matter which part of the middleware world you're looking at, it is one segment of the software business that is growing explosively. It also makes life easier for developers of all kinds of applications. So what's not to like about middleware? Nothing--except that name.