Middleware :: essays research papers

Middlew atomic number 18 In the past several decades, a trend has emerged where mid to gravid size corporations have needed to integrate their existing mainframe systems with their newer PC ground learning systems. With this shift in focus toward PC based communications and productivity software that became available on the market, companies scrambled for ship canal to tie PCs and mainframes together. This created the need for middleware.Companies discovered that the hardware and course of studyming, involved in maintaining mainframe systems, was too costly to re array overnight. In addition to the expense, the applications in place for the most part served their purpose and appeared to be much more unchanging than the personal computers. They maintained superscript files for customers as well as size up levels, generated bills and invoices and, with the right programmer and vision, the mainframes could extract just about any selective information that managers needed. As P Cs became more prevalent for a fraction of the cost and with the study of the Internet and a global network, PC applications with productivity software such(prenominal) as Microsoft Office and connection to the Internet have become controlling in almost every business setting. As these resources became available, users such as employees could now access information easily and instantly, share information simultaneously, and move on both externally and internally through electronic mail. The questions then arose concerning what to do with the pricy mainframe systems and how to permit the PCs to interact. Middleware has become the solution to this problem.A middleware program is an interface between an application and a server. The most useful are those that allow access to the vast resources stored on the highly developed and expensive mainframe databases with a simple user friendly program, like a web browser. Another example is what Kaiser Permanente implemented to ease the ord ering and observe of prescriptions. Kaiser bought a NetWeave middleware solution to tie its VAX pharmacy systems to a Tandem master subscriber database to allow subscribers to dial in prescription orders from their touch-tone phones. NetWeave gives us an representative of how middleware works below. You can find more information on NetWeave at www.netweave.com. It is clear that with the rapid shift in business focus to pc-based information systems, which the gather up for scalability and information on-the-fly, will create a huge demand for middleware.