Next Generation Application Integration: From Simple Information to Web Services

Types of Middleware

The evolution of middleware is changing many of the identifying features that had once made categorizing middleware such a straightforward task. For example, many MOM products now perform publish and subscribe tasks, provide transactional features, and host application logic. The challenge of appropriately categorizing such a product should be plainly evident.

However, even as we acknowledge the difficulty in categorizing middleware, we note that several types of middleware continue to solve particular types of problems. For the purposes of our application integration discussion, we will describe RPCs, MOM, distributed objects, database-oriented middleware, transactional middleware (including TP monitors and application servers), ...