With the increase in popularity of the Internet, and indeed E-Commerce, Middleware has become indispensable in the development of web-based applications. Many of these require continuous complex inter-actions with a number of databases. Middleware is employed to enable the seamless integration of the applications with the various types of databases. Increasingly however middleware is used in the development of applications which communicate across platforms as they traverse the Internet. Typically these applications are being developed using the Java Programming Environment. In choosing the type of middleware used for these applications, consideration must be given to a number of factors including: the type of application being developed, the need for security, quality of service and broadcast services, etc.

It is for this reason that research is currently being undertaken in Letterkenny Institute of Technology into the capabilities of the various types of middleware technology. The categories of middleware technology being analysed include:

1. Database Middleware (e.g. JDBC).
2. Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs) based middleware.
3. Transaction Processing (TP) Monitors.
4. Message Oriented Middleware (MOM).
5. Object Request Brokers (ORBs) including OLE/COM/DCOM.

Consideration must be given to the services provided by the various middleware technologies during their comparison. As such it may be found that no single middleware solution will be the perfect middleware technology to replace all others. Indeed, a number of middleware technologies may be required in conjunction with each other to provide the required solution for any individual application. As previously stated, each application must be assessed for its specific requirements before proceeding with the selection of the middleware technology.

It is envisaged that the development of an advanced prototype E-Commerce application will provide a platform for testing the qualities of the various types of middleware technology. The application created may be used on the server side and will link to a backend database representing a production Management Information System. The link to the database server software will be provided through the use of middleware (see illustration). The application developed will be tested for factors such as: speed, flexibility and error rates in accessing various data types using a number of the middleware technologies.

Contact: Ruth Lennon,
Computing Department, Letterkenny Institute of Technology,
Port Road, Letterkenny, Co. Donegal; Tel: 074-64313;
E-mail: ruth.lennon@lyit.ie