Is Middleware Essential?

Technology Trends

Middleware can be viewed as a term that serves to glue together or mediate between two or more separate and often existing disparate applications. Also, middleware solutions do provide messaging services so that different applications can communicate.   When we ask if middleware is essential, it is because we want to know if we do need a middleware, which area in our application life-cycle does it addresses. If we ever listen to vendors, we will discover that middleware is any platform that helps IT to networked/glue applications by reusing business logic, rules as well as data.  

Middleware is also known as Enterprise Application Integration (EAI).

Middleware infrastructure itself is suppose to ease the integration burden. This is done by providing at least some of the functionality off-the-shelf to link applications together and at the same time provide consistent access to data within the enterprise.   Let us be more specific by describing what middleware does. I will use a basic model to explain how middleware will fit in a client/server environment.  

Looking at the model above, you will notice the connectivity between the client and the server and these connectivity in the middle is call middleware. In some cases, there would be more middleware services provided by this kind of model depending on the application being used. It provides a set of services to applications as shown in our diagram and these services can be used by any applications.  

As you plan your middleware strategy, this is the time for you to change your principal middleware supplier. The reason for such consideration is because some middleware platforms will be linked to key platforms and applications, making change much more harder. Middleware platforms should be possible to change if it adhere to common standards. In most cases, applications are tied in with the middleware through application programming interfaces (APIs) in ways that is hard to standardise and will need reworking when you change the middleware vendor. The result of is complex process with the danger of introducing errors.

Middleware platforms should be possible to change if it adhere to common standards. 

If not properly planned and implemented, you can create as many integration problem than the ones you are solving. This sometimes happen when there is merger and aquisition and the large enterprise do have a variety of core systems to run the business; they most time have more than one middleware being used in their environment.

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