Proceedings of the 9th Workshop on Middleware for Next Generation Internet Computing

While dependability and security become cornerstones of the information society, they are impaired by change, imprecision, and emerging behavior due to scale, dynamism, and heterogeneity. To address these challenges for next generation Internet computing, key extrafunctional properties should not be an "add on" or an "end to end task" anymore, but rather built in by means of Middleware. Service oriented computing, cloud computing, socio-technical systems, and Web 2.0-style applications are important steps for next generation Internet computing, but still fall short when non functional (a.k.a. extra-functional) quality properties (e.g., dependability, security, performance, and scalability) need to be addressed. The emerging Internet communication architecture (e.g., from projects on the Internet of Things, the Future Internet, etc.) also requires middleware support for delivering computing applications and services. We can see many Internet Computing systems following proprietary end-to-end solutions and being weaved with application-specific approaches. This clearly hinders re-use, which can only be successfully leveraged by Middleware-based solutions. This in turn requires new flexibility for Middleware (adaptivity, elasticity, resilience) and new ways of collaboration between Middleware and applications/services. Therefore, extra-functional quality properties need to be addressed not only by interfacing and communication standards, but also in terms of actual mechanisms, protocols, and algorithms. Some of the challenges are the administrative heterogeneity, the loose coupling between coarsegrained operations and long-running interactions, high dynamism, and the required flexibility during run-time. Recently, massive-scale (e.g., big data, millions of participating parties in different roles) and mobility were added to the crucial challenges for Internet computing middleware. The workshop consequently comprises contributions on how specifically middleware can address the above challenges of next generation Internet computing.