Middleware Is Hot

relatively new category of software is making some inroads into government, and its advocates say it could solve the interoperability problems that open systems haven't solved.

That category is middleware. It opens up gateways between programs and data in previously incompatible formats. If, for example, you want your agency's employees to use a World Wide Web browser to look into old database files on your mainframe systems, middleware can help you do that. Or you can use it to merge financial data from three vendors' separate, proprietary systems into the single balance sheet required by the Chief Financial Officers Act.

Middleware comes in several categories, supplementing specific file transfer and communications services provided by the operating system. Some software vendors, such as Sybase Inc., IBM Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co., are adding middleware to their core products for extra functionality. Other companies are selling middleware separately.

Like other technical solutions, middleware is no silver bullet, nor is it appropriate in every case. Because of the slow pace of the Defense Department's efforts to get its data into standard formats that can be shared by all, some have proposed building interim bridges between systems, using middleware. But Brig. Gen. Gary L. Salisbury, the Air Force officer who heads the Defense Information Systems Agency's Joint Interoperability Engineering Organization, is urging caution. "We need to be very careful," he told an audience of Air Force computing professionals in September. "My sense is middleware is not necessarily the right solution."

The market for this kind of product is growing, however. Organizations, whether inside or outside government, are more and more interested in merging information and connecting offices. They're trying to preserve their investments in older-generation computer systems while staying up to date and responsive.

The Internet, with its text-oriented data formats, has added a new wrinkle to agencies' already-complex computing environments. The Federal Railway Administration, for one, is investigating whether a middleware product from a 2-year-old Santa Clara, Calif., company, Active Software Inc., is the ideal way to link outside World Wide Web users with the agency's database. Grant applicants would either fill out on-screen forms or upload their own spreadsheet and text data to the FRA Web server. The middleware would deliver the application data in the appropriate database format. The project has the blessing of the National Performance Review.

Although middleware holds considerable promise for opening up connections between systems, it has the disadvantage of being closed and proprietary in nature. It could add a new layer of complexity to an agency's systems architecture, creating more administrative problems than it solves in the long term. In a recent paper on commercial software, two experts from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh warn that systems glued together with middleware "can become a maintenance nightmare."

On the other hand, middleware has the potential to let systems architects focus on functionality, putting housekeeping details in the proper perspective. Too often in the past, some experts say, nitty-gritty questions of how to integrate communications features or file formats have been the cart driving the systems horse.

Desirable or not for the long haul, middleware is here to stay because it solves real-world problems. More than 125 vendors of these software products are listed in a free book from Digital Equipment Corp., Unix and Windows NT Guide: Integration, Software Development and Migration. To get a copy, call 1-800-DIGITAL and ask for product no. EC-G7520-43.