IT Architectures and Middleware: Strategies for Building Large, Integrated Systems, Second Edition

5. A Technical Summary of Middleware

Chapters 2, 3, and 4 describe in outline form a vast array of technologies. This chapter and the next are about the question, what middleware do we need? This is a key question for implementation design and IT architecture. This chapter approaches the question from a technical angle. First, we discuss the different constituent parts of middleware technology. Second, we examine vendor architectures, such as Microsoft’s .NET and Sun’s J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition). Finally, we look at middleware interoperability. In the next chapter, we look at middleware from the application developer’s point of view.

5.1 Middleware elements

In Chapter 1 we point out that middleware consists of at least eight elements. ...