Advanced Enterprise Middleware
Publication Abstract
Middleware Selection
Stanley M. Sutton Jr.
Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop
on Engineering Distributed Objects",
Wolfgang Emmerich and Stefan Tai, editors.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS)
n. 1999, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2001, pp. 2-7.
Introduction
An increasing variety of middleware systems
is available for use in enterprises today.
Two widely used but very different middleware
styles are object-oriented and message-oriented.
Within each of these styles, there are multiple
products to choose from.
Moreover, any of these products may be used
alone or in combination with other products.
Thus the problem of middleware selection
is increasingly important in the engineering
of
enterprise software systems.
Middleware selection, construed broadly,
is the determination of middleware to be
used in
a software development or integration project.
The middleware may already exist, in
which case selection reflects an intention
to acquire it, or the middleware may not
yet
exist, in which case selection implies an
intention to develop it.
Middleware selection is important for a number
of reasons. It is an essential part of the
way in which distributed systems get built,
both by new development and by integration
of
existing applications and services. Moreover,
middleware is a key enabling technology:
it
provides services, supports application functions
and features, separates concerns, and
integrates components. In these roles, middleware
interacts with and may impact many
other kinds of technologies, such as database
systems, workflow engines, web servers, and
applications. It further affects system architecture
and development processes.
Middleware selection is also challenging,
for these same reasons. Middleware selection
can be an involved software (and systems)
engineering process in its own right, with
all
the technological, organizational, economic,
and political aspects that this may imply.
Because of the central position and critical
function of middleware, if it is selected
or
applied inappropriately, it can become a
key disabling technology.
The two papers in this session provide broad
views on middleware selection for enterprise-scale
distributed systems. "A Key Technology
Evaluation Case Study: Applying a New
Middleware Architecture on the Enterprise
Scale", by Michael Goedicke and Uwe
Zdun of
the University of Essen, Germany, describes
a method for evaluating and selecting
middleware in an enterprise context. It emphasizes
the importance of understanding and
communication among all stakeholders in the
enterprise system, notably management and
engineers. It also emphasizes the enterprise-specific
nature of the middleware evaluation
and selection process.
"An Architecture Proposal for Enterprise
Message Brokers", by Jörn Guy Süß of
the
Technische Universität and Michael Mewes
of the Fraunhofer ISST, both in Berlin,
Germany, defines and motivates an enterprise
architecture based on message brokers.
This work also represents a kind of middleware
selection process, since the motivation for
the message broker architecture arises from
failure of other kinds of considered
middleware to effectively address enterprise
integration needs.
Both of the papers focus on communication
issues as key concerns in middleware
selection. Interestingly, each paper arrives
at a different primary communication style:
synchronous in the former case, asynchronous
in the latter. This divergence of results,
both of which are well justified, only begins
to suggest the diversity of concerns, issues,
and approaches that may characterize middleware
selection.
To begin to organize these topics, we considered
the following general questions:
• What is the role of middleware selection
in the engineering of distributed object
systems?
• What is the process of middleware selection
in the engineering of distributed object
systems?
View a PDF version of this paper here
...
This paper is © 2001 Springer-Verlag.
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