Research Of Middleware And Software Engineering

The construction of a large class of destributed systems can be simplified by leveraging middleware, which is layered between network operating systems and applications componets. Middleware resolves heterogeneity, and facilitates communication and coordination of distributed components. Existing middleware products enable software engineers to build systems that are distributed across a local-area network. State-of-the-art middleware research aims to push this boundary towards Internet-scale distribution, adaptive and reconfigurable middleware and middleware for dependable and wireless systems. The challenge for software engineering research is to devise notation, techniques, methods and tools for distributed system construction that systematically build and exploit the capabilities that middleware delivers.Middleware technologies such as CORBA or Java RMI have proved their suitability for "standard" client-server applications. However, challenges from existing and new types of applications, including support for multimedia, real-time requirements and mobility seems to indicate the need for defining a new architecture for open distributed from the beginning with flexibility and adaptability in mind. This can be achieved by defining an open engineering and allows inspection and adaptation of the underlying components. In our opinion, to meet the needs of such applications, new approaches to the engineering of middleware platforms are required in order to allow for i) configurability of the underlying support offered by the platform, and ii) the ability to open the implementation in order to inspect and adapt the platform's components.The paper compares main kinds of middleware products,and then proposes a next generation middleware architecture that conforms to requirements as indicated above. This architecture is characteristised by being open, and adaptable based on the principle of reflection. The paper also report on some existing research prototypes with a focus towords their suitability as next generation middleware.