Standardizing Middleware: More Than Meets the Eye
Creating a uniform approach to integrating wireless applications into enterprise systems could be beneficial – but there is little agreement as to how.
Until now, tying wireless applications into enterprise computer systems has been a lot like high fashion, dominated by designer products tailored to fit a specific customer.
But as wireless enterprise applications move beyond adventurous early adopter companies, support is growing for a more standards-based approach, creating off-the-rack enterprise mobility. Standardizing middleware – which supplies crucial links between a device's operating system and the applications that run on it – could make it easier for developers to create these mobile business products, while giving business owners an easier path to adopt mobile applications.
Some wireless systems suppliers, however, doubt that approach will work, arguing a one-size-fits-all standard is unrealistic given the myriad business computer systems and wireless devices, not to mention the fact that many businesses still need custom products to fit their own mobile goals.
Java Heats Up
One strong contender lobbying for this unifying enterprise systems title is Sun Microsystems, the creator of Java technology. With a slew of Java application standards now accepted worldwide, Sun is positioning the technology as a central base for enterprise mobile platforms, with the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) standard overseeing applications servers and the Java 2 Mobile Edition (J2ME) specification providing the plug-ins to the mobile devices.
The proliferation of Java-capable handsets makes a strong case for the company. By 2007 about 80 percent of all mobile devices will be Java capable, notes Ken Drachnik, group manager, J2EE technologies for Sun Microsystems.
"I think the world is rapidly converging on J2ME as a standard presentation layer on devices," he says.
It's also finding its way onto enterprise applications servers. A first example of this Java scheme may be found in Research In Motion's (RIM) new BlackBerry MDS v4.1 server software platform, which incorporates J2EE elements to move it beyond e-mail and personal information management applications. As part of that, RIM has set up a mobile studio, allowing developers to create XML applications that will work with the BlackBerry platform's J2EE core.
By simplifying the programming, an enterprise can make it easier for, say, a manager or someone in his organization to develop wireless applications on their own, Drachnik notes. That would allow businesses to create their own applications in-house, "and that would be the ideal."
Still, the J2ME and J2EE platforms are relatively new to the industry, and that means it will take time for them to find wide adoption, Drachnik notes. The fact RIM has adopted it is an early step in that direction. Drachnik adds it is a sign that the industry is starting to mature and look at a more standardized approach.
Consortium Play
Others also are eyeing standardized middleware, including the Integration Consortium, an association of IT administrators and enterprise technology providers. It has formed a wireless subcommittee to develop a standard middleware platform.
Most of the middleware and wireless products that are available are focused on specific applications. That's fine when the goal is to add one application, such as mobile e-mail, but the problem comes when the enterprise wants to add two or three mobile extensions – often from different providers, according to Jill Stelfox, CEO of DefyWire and a member of the Integration Consortium's wireless subcommittee.
"We will create just spaghetti code of applications out there if we don't put in the right infrastructure to support them," she says.
The subcommittee hopes to supply that infrastructure through a standard that concentrates on five key tasks: It must integrate with the enterprise system; monitor and manage the devices tapping into the network; oversee security; provide the development plugs to add or modify applications; and provide the client software on the devices to interact with the overall network and manage information.
In a meeting later this month, the subcommittee hopes to chart the course of that work and start issuing standards next year, Stelfox says.
Doubts Abound
Others, however, doubt that a single middleware standard could apply across the diverse enterprise environment.
"Where middleware still needs to have specialization is both in how you deliver the application and how that application presents itself on the different mobile platforms," says Eric Hermelee, vice president of marketing for Wavelink, which supplies middleware products that concentrate on the retail and manufacturing verticals.
In manufacturing, for example, wireless devices are often ruggedized, with bigger processing power, custom user interfaces and perhaps peripheral devices such as mobile printers.
"You will have some middleware tools that just won't provide those APIs [application programming interface] – they are not focused on areas like this or markets like this or customers like this," Hermelee notes. "For customers that are investing a lot in these very intense workflow applications in these industrial markets, they aren't going to settle for the lowest-common-denominator solution. They are going to want something that rises to the level of the mobile investment they've made."
As with others, Hermelee points out that the middleware products Wavelink offers do use APIs from Java and from Microsoft's Visual Basic developer platform.
Similarly, JP Mobile markets enterprise products that use standard APIs to provide secure wireless access to e-mail, calendar and scheduling data behind the corporate firewall. But just relying on Java to provide a middleware standard may not be so easy, according to Lori Williams, vice president of services and support.
To start with, mobile products have to be designed to run whether the device has access to a wireless connection or not. In the past, client-server applications were designed to run in either connected or unconnected modes, "and we are back to that with mobile. But what Java enterprise assumes is that it is always connected," Williams says.
Drachnik, however, refutes that idea, saying that the J2ME standard does in fact deal with devices working unconnected. "You can have a database of information that you can synchronize with J2ME, update that, interact with that application, and then when you are back in wireless coverage, you can reconnect and then transmit that information," he says.
Siding With Apps
IBM, meanwhile, is trying to bring more consistency into the mobile world by using the same template to extend its Websphere enterprise computer system platform and extending it into the wireless realm. In aligning the new wireless services systems with the already existing wired product and also using standards-based APIs, IBM hopes to lessen the integration load.
"The application developers that are developing toward Websphere today will recognize the same programmatic APIs that they used to build applications today into this new environment," says Angus McIntyre, product line manager for IBM's Workplace Client Technology, Micro Edition.
On the applications side, McIntyre notes developers also are getting some help in Eclipse, an open-source pool of software development tools started by IBM but now operating as a stand-alone organization. And the Open Mobile Alliance also has an effort under way, including the Mobile Expert Group's work on a purpose-fit middleware scheme.
Whether the approach is a standard middleware or just products that rely on standard APIs, the players do seem to agree that greater consistency is needed to lure in more mainstream enterprise customers across many verticals.
"The difficulty is getting it out to the more general enterprise applications," Drachnik says. "That requires experience in the field. People have to become familiar with that, see that other people have it, see that they can use it on a repeatable basis, see that it is secure and the data is not lost. And as they get that experience, I think you will see a more rapid adoption of this."
Gaining that industrywide assurance may be easier with a more consistent approach to adding enterprise applications. While one-size-fits-all mobile enterprise schemes may not be possible, perhaps it is enough to have everyone cutting on the same general pattern.
17-Jan-2006