CISC 833 Advanced Operating System - 2005 Winter
e-mail: xiao@cs.queensu.ca
Middleware is motivated by the growing acceptance of a network-centric paradigm, where distributed applications with a range of quality of service (QoS) needs are constructed by integrating separate components connected by various forms of communication services [9]. In this survey, we briefly review the development history of the middleware. The primary focus has been put on contemporary middleware architecture accompanying the objects, which is referred as Distributed Object Computing (DOC) middleware. We investigate DOC architecture in some level of details, while using current market middleware implementations as examples to explain each layer in the architecture. We also regard the ``Distribution Middleware'' layer as the current emphasis. Most important developments are in this layer, such as Object Management Group (OMG)'s Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), Sun's Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI), Microsoft's Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM), and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). The survey tries to compare them horizontally. Finally, we look at some field research problems and future trends in middleware development.
Henry Xiao
March 2005