Middleware For Communications

A state-of-the-art guide to middleware technologies, and their pivotal role in communications networks. Middleware is about integration and interoperability of applications and services running on heterogeneous computing and communications devices. The services it provides - including identification, authentication, authorization, soft-switching, certification and security - are used in a vast range of global appliances and systems, from smart cards and wireless devices to mobile services and e-Commerce. Qusay H. Mahmoud has created an invaluable reference tool that explores the origins and current uses of middleware (highlighting the importance of such technologies as CORBA, J2EE and JMS) and has thus compiled the roadmap to future research in this area. Middleware for Communications: discusses the emerging fields of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) and grid middleware detailing middleware platforms such as JXTA and the Globus middleware toolkit. shows how Middleware will play a significant role in mobile computing. presents a Platform Supporting Mobile Applications (PLASMA) - a middleware platform that consists of components for location, event, and profile handling of Location-Based Services. introduces middleware security focusing on the appropriate aspects of CORBA, J2EE, and .NET and demonstrates how to realize complex security capabilities such as role-based access control (RBAC) and mandatory access control (MAC). discusses how Quality of Service (QoS) component middleware can be combined with Model Driven Architecture (MDA) technologies to rapidly develop, generate, assemble and deploy flexible communications applications. This incomparable overview of middleware for communications is suitable for graduate students and researchers in communications and computing departments. It is also an authoritative guide for engineers and developers working on distributed systems, mobile computing and networked appliances.

A comprehensive resource on multimedia communications. Covers recent trends and standardization activities in multimedia communications, such as layered structures, underlying theories and the current best design techniques. Describes the convergence of various technologies including communications, broadcasting, information technology, and home electronics, and emerging new communication services and applications resulting from the growth of the Internet and wireless technologies. Please go to www-ee.uta.edu/dip for additional information.

Middleware refers to the intermediate software layer that bridges the gap between the heterogeneous hardware platforms and the backend applications requirements. It allows providing common services and programming abstractions and hiding the low-level management of the connected hardware. With the recent advances in distributed systems and enabling technologies, such as RFID, WSNs, IoT, IoE, cloud computing, context-aware pervasive computing, ubiquitous computing, etc., middleware design and development has become a necessity, taking increasing importance. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the different design patterns and reference models used in middleware architectures in general, followed by a description of specific middleware architectures dedicated to the use of the different emerging technologies, such as IoT, cloud computing, IEEE 802.11, etc. This book intends therefore to bring together in one place up-to-date contributions and remaining challenges in this fast-moving research area for the benefit of middleware systems’ designers and applications developers.

By using this innovative text, students will obtain an understanding of how contemporary operating systems and middleware work, and why they work that way.

Middleware is a critical foundation needed to leverage the development of a wide range of mobile and ubiquitous applications. Intrinsic challenges when building such middleware require the combination of expertise from areas like distributed systems, networking, software engineering, and application development. This textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to the main fundamental problems, technologies, paradigms, and solutions of concern to developers of middleware for mobile environments. The contributions are grouped into four parts, on networking and programming issues, communication models, middleware issues, and application issues. Each chapter is structured as a self-contained tutorial, presenting an overview of a specific topic and the state-of-the-art solutions for the related problems. In addition, the book also includes an authoritative reference list. The material has been successfully used in several thematic training schools organized by the ESF MiNEMA (Middleware for Network Eccentric and Mobile Applications) program, and the book's organization and presentation is ideal for an advanced course on middleware.

This text provides an architectural overview of the Enterprise Service Bus, showing how it can bring the task of integration of enterprise application and services built on J2EE, .NET, C/C++, and other legacy environments into the reach of everyday IT professionals.

Over the past years, a considerable amount of effort has been devoted, both in industry and academia, towards the development of basic technology as well as innovative applications for the Internet of Things. Adaptive Middleware for the Internet of Things introduces a scalable, interoperable and privacy-preserving approach to realize IoT applications and discusses abstractions and mechanisms at the middleware level that simplify the realization of services that can adapt autonomously to the behavior of their users. Technical topics discussed in the book include:Behavior-driven Autonomous ServicesGAMBAS Middleware ArchitectureGeneric and Efficient Data AcquisitionInteroperable and Scalable Data ProcessingAutomated Privacy PreservationAdaptive Middleware for the Internet of Things summarizes the results of the GAMBAS research project funded by the European Commission under Framework Programme 7. It provides an in-depth description of the middleware system developed by the project consortium. In addition, the book describes several innovative mobility and monitoring applications that have been built, deployed and operated to evaluate the middleware under realistic conditions with a large number of users. Adaptive Middleware for the Internet of Things is ideal for personnel in the computer and communication industries as well as academic staff and research students in computer science interested in the development of systems and applications for the Internet of Things.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th IFIP WG 6.1 International Conference on Distributed Applications and Interoperable Systems, DAIS 2003, held in Paris, France, in November 2003. The 21 revised full papers and 6 revised short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 88 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on adaptation and separation of concerns; deployment; security and transactions; replication; networking and routing; discovery, context-awareness, and ontologies; and asynchronous messaging.