Shulou(Shulou.com)06/03 Report--

This article mainly introduces "what is middleware". In daily operation, I believe many people have doubts about what middleware is. Xiaobian consulted all kinds of materials and sorted out simple and easy operation methods. I hope it will help you answer the doubts about "what is middleware"! Next, please follow the small series to learn together!

1. What is middleware

Middleware, English name for Middleware, is a basic software applied to distributed systems. From a vertical perspective, middleware is located between various applications/services and operating systems/database systems and other system software, mainly solving problems such as data transmission, data access, application scheduling, system construction and system integration, process management, etc. in a distributed environment. It is a platform that supports application development, operation and integration in a distributed environment, enabling interconnection between systems and helping users develop application software efficiently.

Middleware evolves as distributed computing architectures evolve. Middleware development is closely related to computing architecture changes. With the development of network architecture, many application software needs to run under different hardware platforms and network protocol environments. Traditional two-tier distributed architecture, i.e. client-server architecture, faces the problems of poor performance and low efficiency and cannot meet the requirements. Three-tier or multi-tier distributed architecture is proposed. Specific business logic is decoupled from the underlying logic and separated to the middle tier. Finally, middleware unifies interfaces and protocols. Combine client and server.

In 1968, IBM released the CICS transaction control system, which separates application software from system services, with the technical idea of "middleware", but because it is not the product of distributed environment, it is not regarded as formal middleware. In the 1980s, AT&T's Bell Labs developed Tuxedo, marking the birth of transaction middleware, which was initially a laboratory product, later acquired by BEA and eventually owned by Oracle. In 1994, IBM released the MQ family of message queuing services, marking the birth of messaging middleware.

Middleware is divided into two main technical camps. Since the birth of Java language, especially the release of J2EE (later renamed JAVA EE) standard, the development standard of middleware has been unified. At the same time, IBM, Oracle and other vendors actively participate in the formulation of J2EE standards, taking an open route, creating a strong vitality. In 2001, Microsoft released. NET, and middleware evolved into two technology camps. Currently, the Java camp has the widest reach, while the. NET camp is used primarily by Microsoft and its partners.

Middleware is one of the most important components of basic software. In 2006, the national "nuclear high base" major project proposed that "base" refers to basic software, which refers to the lowest level of IT system and has nothing to do with specific business logic, providing support for application software to access and manage system resources, data and network resources, mainly including operating system, database system and middleware. Middleware is the link of IT system communication and information transmission, and constitutes the underlying infrastructure of IT system together with operating system and database system.

The market size is growing steadily. According to the Report on the Development Trend of Software Infrastructure (Middleware) Market from 2018 to 2019 released by Planning Consulting, in 2018, the market size of middleware in China was RMB 6.50 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 9.6%. It is estimated that the market size in 2019 will be RMB 7.24 billion yuan.

Thanks to the acceleration of informatization construction in government, finance, telecommunications and other industries, as well as the growth of user demand for cloud-based distributed application services, message queues and other middleware tools, the middleware market will maintain a steady growth trend in the future. According to Huawei's White Paper on the Development of Kunpeng Computing Industry, by 2023, the global middleware market space will be USD 43.4 billion, with a five-year CAGR of 10.3%; China's middleware market space will be USD 1.36 billion, with a five-year CAGR of 15.7%.

2. Classification of middleware

Middleware's functional characteristics and self-positioning determine the diversity of its classification. Specifically, middleware can be divided into basic middleware, integrated middleware and industry domain application platform.

Basic middleware

Middleware, including transaction middleware, message middleware, etc., mainly solved the problems of software performance and reliability in distributed environment at the beginning. Since then, application server middleware has emerged to meet the needs of application software running on different hardware platforms and network environments.

Transaction middleware is the product of object-oriented technology and distributed computing technology. It transfers transaction requests efficiently, coordinates the branches of transactions, ensures the integrity of transactions, schedules the operation of applications, and realizes the efficiency of the whole system. Transaction middleware is suitable for online transaction systems, such as banking systems, booking systems, etc., and has been widely implemented in finance, finance, taxation, telecommunications and other industries.

Message middleware solves the problem of message communication among subsystems in distributed computing environment. It establishes a network asynchronous communication channel, realizes application communication between different or the same computer system, provides a flexible and easy-to-use support platform for the development and operation of distributed application systems in a network environment, and is usually used to send message data between various systems or components. Message queue is an implementation of message middleware.

Application server middleware is mainly applied to Web system, located between client browser and database, its main function is to expose business logic (application) to client, provide operation platform and system service for business logic (application), and manage access to database. Application Server Middleware provides development tools and platform for Web application developers.

In general, based on basic middleware, software applications can run on different operating systems, data can be stored in databases of various vendors, and information exchange and stable transactions based on various networks can be supported.

Software Foundation Platform

With the further development of network technology, it is difficult for basic middleware to solve the interconnection problem of business across departments and enterprises. Integrated middleware emerges as the times require, mainly based on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) architecture. Under SOA architecture, Web Services is an implementation where all valuable IT resources, old and new, can become IT assets on demand and services can be quickly integrated and developed into composite applications. Based on this, Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) is developed. It is based on technologies such as message communication, intelligent routing, and data conversion. It supports various heterogeneous software and business modules to communicate in a service-oriented manner. It is a comprehensive integrated middleware.

In recent years, new generation information technologies such as cloud computing and big data have emerged, middleware product functions have continued to evolve, application scenarios and boundaries have developed into cloud computing and big data fields, and cloud middleware and data integration platforms have become new infrastructures.

Middleware in SOA, cloud computing and big data mainly solves the problems of application software integration, software architecture consistency, rapid software delivery, data governance and safe use. In order to distinguish it from traditional middleware, the industry has proposed the concept of software infrastructure platform.

3. Domestic middleware manufacturers

When middleware was first established, domestic manufacturers had already laid out. Dongfangtong started the research and development of middleware in 1992, and launched TongLINK, a message middleware, while research institutions such as the Institute of Software of Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of National Defense Science and Technology also conducted synchronous research on middleware technology.

At present, domestic middleware manufacturers can be divided into two categories: one is professional middleware manufacturers, such as Dongfang Tong, Baoland, Puyuan Information, Kingdee Tianyan, Zhongchuang Middleware, etc.; the other is Internet manufacturers, whose middleware products mainly serve the internal enterprises. According to the data released by Jishi Consulting in March 2019, in China's middleware market, the overall share of domestic manufacturers exceeds that of foreign manufacturers in terms of purchase number; however, from the actual sales amount, foreign giants IBM and Oracle still maintain a large advantage, and the single contract amount is higher.

dongfangtong

Dongfangtong was founded in 1992, focusing on the R & D, sales and related services of basic software Tong series middleware for a long time. It was listed on GEM in 2014, and expanded its security business through new investment and acquisition. In recent years, benefiting from independent innovation and market demand in the field of information security, the company's main businesses such as basic software and information security have continued to grow. In 2019, the revenue was RMB 500 million yuan, among which the revenue of basic software business was RMB 173 million yuan, accounting for 34.70%, with a year-on-year growth of 15.13%.

The company is a pioneer and leader in China's middleware market, and its middleware products cover mainstream products and solutions for application support, data integration and application platforms. Over the years, the company has maintained the first place in the middleware market share of domestic manufacturers, ranking in the leader quadrant in the domestic market, and has established many typical application cases in government, transportation, finance, telecommunications, military and other industries.

In 2019, the company became an ecological partner of "Huawei Cloud Kunpeng Lingyun Plan," completed the compatibility and adaptation certification of application server middleware TongWeb and other products with Kunpeng Cloud, and TongWeb entered Huawei Cloud Mall "Kunpeng Zone."

Borland

Founded in 2008, Baoland is mainly engaged in the R & D and sales of middleware products, cloud management platform software, application performance management software and other intelligent operation and maintenance products, and provides supporting technical services. The company's products are mainly used in the telecommunications industry. In 2019, China Mobile accounted for 76.67% of its revenue, and began to expand into the financial and government industries. In 2019, according to the established target, the company actively improved its operation ability, realizing revenue of RMB 143 million yuan and net profit of RMB 61 million yuan. Among them, middleware product revenue was 54.71 million yuan, an increase of 18.64% year-on-year.

The company's middleware products cover application server, transaction middleware and message middleware, and launch a variety of products including application server BES Application Server, message middleware BES MQ, transaction middleware BES VBroker, etc. As of the end of 2019, the Company has replaced foreign mainstream middleware products in the core business systems of China Mobile in 12 provinces including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong (Southern Base), Hunan and Heilongjiang, as well as the centralized big data platform, centralized ERP project and WLAN authentication billing platform project of China Mobile Group Headquarters, realizing large-scale application of products.

The company is also actively involved in building a domestic software and hardware ecosystem. In 2019, application server products passed the ENCOR test. The company promotes industrial chain cooperation with Huawei, etc., passes product compatibility certification of Huawei's "one cloud and two wings" certification system, and carries out a large number of compatibility adaptation work with CPU, operating system, database and application manufacturers.

puyuan information

Founded in 2003, the company is a professional software infrastructure platform provider, with cloud application platform, big data platform, SOA integration platform three business lines, mainly for finance, telecommunications, government, energy and other industries large and medium-sized customers, providing independent controllable, safe and reliable software infrastructure products and corresponding technical services. In 2019, the company realized revenue of RMB 396 million yuan, accounting for 58.08% of the total proportion of finance and telecommunications industries, and realized net profit of RMB 50 million yuan. Among them, cloud application platform revenue was 121 million yuan, big data platform revenue was 100 million yuan, SOA integration platform revenue was 167 million yuan, up 24.47%, 19.25% and 7.80% respectively.

Software infrastructure products have been recognized by users in terms of technology, performance, maturity, safety and reliability. In the financial sector, products were applied to banks, financial management institutions, exchanges, etc.; in the telecommunications sector, customers covered China Mobile headquarters and 23 provinces including Shanghai and Guangdong, China Unicom headquarters and 27 provinces including Beijing and Jiangsu, China Telecom headquarters and 27 provinces including Chongqing and Jiangxi by the end of 2019; in the government sector, products such as unified architecture platform, data governance and data exchange were applied to government affairs management and public security at all levels of government.

The company also actively promotes localization substitution. By the end of 2019,27 products have completed 123 localization product adaptation and mutual certification, including Feiteng, Longxin, Kunpeng and other chips, winning the bid Kirin, Galaxy Kirin and other operating systems, as well as Huawei Gauss, Renmin Jincang, Dameng and other databases. In 2019, the Company obtained Huawei Preferred Certification Service Solution Partner Certification, and a number of products passed Huawei's own database and operating system compatibility certification.

Kingdee tianyan

The company is a software developer in the basic software industry, founded in 2000 and listed on the New Third Board in 2017. In 2000, the first domestic J2EE application server was launched; in 2007, SOA solutions were released; and in 2018,"Tianyan Cloud" was built. At present, relying on Kingdee Group's advantages in the field of financial informatization, the company's products cover middleware, government finance, big data and other aspects. Middleware products include application server AAS, messaging middleware AMQ, monitoring platform AMP, cloud computing platform ACP.

In 2019, the revenue was CNY 88.4552 million, with a year-on-year growth of 31.36%. Among them, software sales revenue was 72.1592 million yuan, accounting for 81.58%. The company continued to win the title of "China IT User Satisfaction Survey-Preferred Brand for Middleware Product Users" and further consolidated its market share in the domestic middleware field. The company also actively participates in the mutual recognition of domestic upstream and downstream adaptation, and realizes comprehensive compatibility and adaptation with domestic complete machines, chips, operating systems and databases.

Zhongchuang Middleware

Founded in 2002, the company is the only middleware R & D enterprise in China with both national classified A qualification and military qualification. The main business is basic software middleware product development, integration and technical services. The main products include application servers, workflow middleware, message middleware, enterprise service bus, data transmission platform, business information and electronic file exchange system, unified supervision platform, tamper-proof system, PaaS platform, etc.

The company's products have successfully replaced similar international products in key industries and fields such as finance, taxation and energy. In the financial field, it was successfully applied in financial institutions such as Export-Import Bank of China and Guangfa Bank; in the tax field, workflow middleware won the competition with IBM and Oracle similar products, and was an important part of the basic software platform of the National Golden Tax Phase III Project; in the energy field, application servers successfully replaced Oracle Weblogic Server in the whole network of China Southern Power Grid. In 2019, the Company and the industry jointly released the White Paper on the Development of Independent and Controllable Middleware Industry.

Ali

Alibaba middleware team relies on the huge traffic and data of Alibaba e-commerce platform to continuously realize technological advancement. A series of products independently developed by the team in the end of 2007 Taobao architecture 2.0 to 3.0 transition process, so that Taobao from centralized Java applications to distributed Java applications, covering message middleware, service framework, data layer, application server and large-scale distributed stability platform. In 2018, Alibaba middleware open source component Sentinel released its first officially recommended production version: 1.3.0-GA, which attracted the attention of the open source community.

Tencent

Tencent began to develop TubeMQ, a distributed messaging middleware system, in 2013, focusing on high-performance storage and transmission of massive data in big data scenarios. After nearly 7 years of massive data precipitation, the daily access volume exceeds 25 trillion, and serves products such as Weixin Pay, Tencent Video, Tencent Advertising, etc. In 2019, Tencent announced TubeMQ open source at ApacheCon.

In 2018, Tencent Cloud (Cloud) released microservice middleware TSF, which is a PaaS platform centering on applications and microservices, solving a series of problems such as complex IT system, slow upgrade iteration, poor operation and maintenance scalability and weak mass user support capability for enterprises, and helping traditional enterprises to quickly build large-scale distributed architecture for hundreds of millions of Internet users.

At this point, the study of "what is middleware" is over, hoping to solve everyone's doubts. Theory and practice can better match to help everyone learn, go and try it! If you want to continue learning more relevant knowledge, please continue to pay attention to the website, Xiaobian will continue to strive to bring more practical articles for everyone!

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