A2A, B2B - now we need M2M (middleware to middleware) technology

Abstract

Middleware has reached a level of maturity, and in particular it is now over twenty-one years since the first RPC facility was introduced.For many different reasons, ranging from the technical to the political, a set of middleware standards and technologies have emerged over the period. There is now a strong need for integration of middleware M2M to align with the currently in vogue terminology.There are many facets to M2M including the following: the ability to architecture and design a system in a way that's independent of the choice of middleware; interoperability of middleware at different levels, from the simple message passing to full QoS; building middleware on top of other middleware, that is having middleware for middleware. This talk outlines the need for M2M, some of the approaches and the current status. Sean Baker is a founder of IONA Technologies.His original experience in distributed computing was gained as a faculty member in the Distributed Systems Group, Department of Computer Science,Trinity College Dublin.Within Trinity, he worked on many projects, designing and implementingsupport environments for distributed object systems, and also their relationships to databases andpersistence in general. In 1991 he co-founded IONA Technologies to exploit this experience.Sean is IONA's Chief Technology Officer, and is responsible for IONA's product vision.He also manages a small group of senior architects that ensure the consistency of our overall product range and foster innovationthroughout the company. Sean is the author of "CORBA Distributed Objects" published by AddisonWesley Longman and ACM Press.He is co-author of "CORBA Fundamentals and Programming",published by Wiley. Proceedings of the Third International Symposium on Distributed-Objects and Applications (DOA’01) 0-7695-1300-X/01 $10.00 © 2001 IEEE