Interoperability and Middleware - Research Paper Example

? Interoperability and Middleware al Affiliation) Interoperability and middleware are computing and programming systems that are used in resource and application management in the field of telecommunications and computer industry especially applied and used to develop required infrastructure in ICT (Pfaffenberger, 2003). To a great extent the telecommunications manufactures develop infrastructure based services while the computer engineering develop applications and services based on data transfer. With the several revolutions witnessed in the internet oriented applications and services it has made it compulsory for fusion of the telecommunications and computer industry. This was aimed at improving the service offered by the ICT sector. After this development, the ICT sector became more comprehensive and demanded more research and advancements on telecommunications and computing network flexibility (Lerner, 2002). Today interoperability standards are applied in ICT world to improve effective communication compatibility, exchange of data and services. The smooth interaction between two or more components of the operating software for communication compatibility, services and data exchange can be termed as inter-operatibility. Interoperability is a necessity in ICT because it is a tool that increases the connectivity of computers via the internet and offers a solution to operational costs. Furthermore, its software has been proved to be of quality provided heterogeneity is maintained, for instance, on systems written in different language programming; running on different hardware programs and operating system; using different data representation; implementing unlike syntactic or semantics interpretations; and using different control platforms (Puder, Ro?mer & Pilhofer, 2006) For interoperability heterogeneity to be realized there has to be a middleware software package. Today, there are many telecommunication and computation industries that offer middle ware products. The industry built middleware product essentially develops a connector that makes interoperability system to configure for use. Middle ware refers to application software that serves the purpose of a transition layer or exchange of resources between two networked counterparts. It also merges and incorporates two networked counterparts to communicate with each other either running on the same or different platforms. Middleware software applications are divided into two major categories, application management and resource management. In application management invokes specific services that perform given tasks for them. This application management is also divided into other two categories, the higher and the lower, that is dependent on the level of service abstraction the middleware offers. The lower application known as inter-application management communication middleware operates with remote procedure calls in general while the higher application middleware totally abstracts the network by substituting procedure calls with direct service calls. The second middleware category, resource management, acts as resource management utility. Just like the first category it is divided into two groups, higher and lower resource management dependent on the type of resource managed by the middleware. The higher resource, also referred to as database middleware, manages software related resources such as transaction processing and database access as these resources are related to the database while lower resource middleware manager, also known as resource middleware, manages hardware related resources like CPU, hard drive space and memory (Puder, Ro?mer & Pilhofer, 2006). At the time of manufacture its main aim was to set up new standards of addressing the issue of differences that occur due to heterogeneous networks. It also provided for grid distinctive characteristics like file sharing, processor and additional grid functionalities such as API (application programming interfaces) with a primary concern aimed in resource allocation and reservation. The third advancement that is evident in the contemporary telecommunications society originated from Microsoft steered by the project NET my services which offers applications that make it possible to access several user information that contains personal calendar, e-mail, documents and contacts. The sole aim of this project was coming up with a network that provides the same information irrespective of the used input device. The graphical context through which the information is presented is the only thing that differs. From NET my services features it is classified as an application middleware (Lerner, 2002). The roles of middleware services are hence driven by the above mentions platforms as connectivity software to execute functional set of enabling services that enhance multiple processes running on one or more machines to interact across a network. In addition middleware plays an essential role in transmigrating mainframe applications to server applications and providing communication across heterogeneous platforms. Another role of middleware application is the use of a set of distributive software application on an operating system and network services on a system node in a network. Middleware as a programming service also plays a role in providing an operational set of API that allows the application to maintain transparency within a network, interaction with another application, reliability and speeding up capacity without losing function. Product middleware used in executing these roles include: TP monitors (Transaction processing monitors) which sit between the client program and the database server to ensure databases are updated appropriately. Messaging middleware which is used as a common interface and transport route between application by storing message data and lines them up if the target is overloaded same as what is used in e-mail messaging system or the Microsoft Message Queue Server. There is also the distributive processing middleware that distributes object systems such as COBRA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture), to ensure processes are run anywhere in the network. Remote procedure calls (RPCs) is also another application service that allows logic of an application is distributed across a network. Other middleware applications uses are the database use that provides a common interface between a query and multiple distributed databases; programming interfaces that supports open database connectivity (ODBC), and application server middleware use which is a web-based application server providing interfaces between the browser functionality and legacy systems. Today these middleware roles are very crucial and are used for registration, authentication, identification, authorization, service usage tracking, and administration to enhance middleware distributed, application and management services as discussed in this paper. In summary, middleware application usage is still evolving and proved to be a significant developmental tool. As a result of this therefore, some of the expected future trends are high levels distributed systems on operating system (OS) management, end to end global perspective on resource management system, and distributive resource management which makes it easier to provide for load balancing, mobility transparency, and system reliability. This in turn translates to interoperability over the web, interoperability between diverse middleware packages and a global experience of making systems interoperate. References Lerner, M. (2002). Middleware networks concept, design, and deployment of Internet infrastructure. New York: Kluwer Academic. Pfaffenberger, B. (2003). Webster's new world computer dictionary (10th ed.). Indianapolis, Ind.: Wiley Pub. Puder, A., Ro?mer, K., & Pilhofer, F. (2006). Distributed systems architecture a middleware approach. Amsterdam: Elsevier Sinisa Srbljic et all. (n.d.) Application Middleware: A Case Study. Computer Engineering. Retrieved March 27, 2013, from www.eecg.toronto.edu/~plavec/pub/middleware Read More