What is Middleware? Importance, Types & Use Cases

As a rule, company infrastructure grows organically. A small development group may start out writing code and shunting it up to a cloud server. Those developers may have a printer and a bunch of personal computers: Mac, Windows, or both. Even a setup that bare-bones requires operating systems at the personal computers, an operating system on the cloud, and the means to talk between them.

As more and more functions and employees are hired, all with their own work requirements, it becomes even more complex. Ultimately, IT winds up supporting a conglomeration of:

• Personal computers
• Printers
• Video equipment
• Conferencing equipment
• Server software
• Security hardware and software

To manage the interaction between these disparate applications and users, there is middleware.

Overview of middleware software

Middleware acts as an interface between the functional APIs provided by an operating system, and the services provided throughout a company’s network, to distribute services throughout the company’s infrastructure. It does this by literally passing information between both sides of each requested software interaction in the system.

Middleware includes all software needed to support interactions between the service’s client API, transmit the request over the network, and manage the resulting response.

It plays a key role in business process integration, application integration, data integration, standards integration, and platform integration:

• Enables real-time data processing and automation by acting as the “middleman” between software at the server end and applications at the client end.
• Improves businesses' scalability by making it easy to add or remove applications, and increase the number of users in the system.
• Supports the development of new applications.
• Supports resource management and overall efficiency by facilitating workflow automation.

How middleware works

Middleware is essentially a messaging framework. It abstracts the underlying communication process between components, shuttling requests to destination services and responses from the service back to the requester.

The requesting application and the destination service don’t communicate directly with each other at all; they just send and receive messages through the middleware. This eliminates the need for requesting applications to know the language of all possible destination services.

Common messaging frameworks include:

• JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)
• Representational State Transfer (REST API)
• Extensible Markup Language (XML)
• Web services
• Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)

The most pervasive example of middleware is a web server. Web servers connect websites to a back-end database that processes forms submitted by end users (to request information or purchase goods and services). The logic of the form might be in XML or JSON. That form is submitted to the web server, which runs the business logic on the request, retrieves information from the database, or communicates to other related resources using different protocols.

Other middleware functions include:

• Resource management: Middleware can manage the flow of request traffic between end users and services so that individual file servers or applications are not overwhelmed.
• Security: Middleware provides a secure communication channel between distributed applications so that sensitive information is sent safely to the destination.
• Process optimization: middleware can automate and customize responses to user requests, sorting and filtering the results before sending them to the requester.

Types of middleware

This section describes some common types of middleware.

Remote procedure call (RPC) middleware

RPC is synchronous middleware that sends a request for a remote machine or service to execute a function, then pauses while the remote system interprets and executes the request. (“Synchronous” means that functions are handled one-at-a-time, in the order received. While one operation is being performed, other operations’ instructions are blocked.)

Message-oriented middleware (MOM)

MOM is asynchronous middleware that sends a request for a remote machine or service to execute a function, then continues working on other things while it waits for the remote system to interpret and execute the request. When it receives a reply from the remote system, it processes it as soon as it is free.

Database middleware

Database middleware connects directly to remote data sources, controlling the flow of data in and out of databases. Developers can perform fast queries and updates without interrupting database operations.

Transactional middleware

Transactional middleware monitors transactions between multiple, disparate services. This type of middleware is useful in the development of teleprocessing monitors, which control the transfer of data between multiple local and remote terminals to process a transaction completely – or take appropriate action if an error occurs. This type of middleware is most often used to coordinate web services.

Distributed objects

Distributed objects enable programming objects to call each other even if they’re not within the same system. This middleware enables developers to use the remote object’s own methods to access it.

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)

APIs can be considered middleware because they provide a simple interface that acts as a gateway to the underlying service, enabling external users to run operations. For example, developers can use RESTful APIs to pass a wide variety of data types between systems, including XML and JSON files.

Middleware architecture

Middleware is comprised of several components that create and coordinate a data pipeline that carries processes data for compatibility and then carries it as requests (between requesters and services) and responses (between services and requesters).

The common components of middleware software include:

• Management console: Provides software developers with an overview of the middleware system's activities, software rules, and configurations.
• Client interface: The outer part of the middleware software, which communicates with the requesting applications. Developers use functions provided by the client interface to interact with other applications, databases, or other microservices.
• Internal interface: Acts as the software glue that binds the various components together. The middleware components use the internal interface to function cohesively with their own protocol.
• Platform interface: The middleware interface ensures that the middleware program is compatible with various platforms. It contains software components that work with several types of operating systems.
• Contract manager: Defines the rules for data exchange in the middleware system. It also ensures that applications abide by the rules when sending data with the middleware. It sends an alert, or an exception, to the application when it breaches specific rules. For example, the contract manager will return an exception if the application sends a number when a word is expected.
• Session manager: Establishes a secure communication channel between applications and the middleware. It ensures that communication flows seamlessly and stores data activity records for reporting.
• Database manager: Integrates with different database types, as required.
• Runtime monitor: Provides continuous monitoring of data movements in the middleware. It detects and reports unusual activities to developers.

The importance of middleware in app development

Middleware is a critical component for building modern, scalable applications, especially in cloud environments. Modern business applications are engineered to run at scale, on premises, and across clouds. To build them, developers need an application environment with unified foundational capabilities. The software layers of middleware are key to assembling such an environment.

• Container layer: Manages the delivery aspect of application life cycles in a uniform manner.
• Runtimes layer: Creates an execution environment for custom code, facilitating the creation of lightweight runtimes and frameworks for highly distributed cloud environments, in-memory caching for fast data access, and messaging for quick data transfer.
• Integration layer: Provides services to connect custom and purchased applications, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) assets, and APIs, to form functioning systems. It can also facilitate services for in-memory databases and data caches, data or event streaming, and API management.
• Process automation and decision management layer: Provides critical intelligence, optimization and automation, and decision management.

A middleware alternative from CData

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