Part Seven: Middleware in Action - Industrial Strength Data Access

One approach to selecting software is to create a list of features required to sustain an organization’s applications, services and web sites. For data access middleware, certain attributes appear consistently on that type of features list.

The key attributes include multiple capabilities for boosting query performance, including caches and connection pooling. Middleware should support tunable data access performance, such as adjusting network packet size. For scalability and high availability, it should be multi-threaded and thread safe, with capabilities for client load balancing and failover to alternate servers (figure 2).

Performance and Scalability

Figure 2

Premium-quality data access middleware plugs into scalable application architectures. These architectures use load balancing, alternate servers and failover capabilities, including client failover.

Licensing middleware for a specific application or database version is shortsighted, because organizations typically manifest a need for accessing disparate data sources for a variety of purposes. Middleware should therefore support disparate databases, types and features and interoperable SQL. That flexibility should extend to supporting diverse applications, such as business intelligence, data warehousing, transaction processing and legacy data integration. It should extend further to operation with multiple computing platforms, with different chipsets and operating systems. Another flexibility requirement is the capability of operation in systems and applications with diverse architectures - scaling successfully from workgroup to department, division, the enterprise and the Internet.

In an era when criminal enterprises employ skilled hackers, organizations require middleware with a strong emphasis on security. It should fit into a defense in depth strategy for network security and database security, with secure communications and secure code. It should also integrate with multiple solutions for authentication and authorization, including three-factor authentication.

To facilitate ease of development and debugging, data access middleware should include trace and spy tools. It should be standards-compliant and reliable, with each new release subjected to rigorous pre-release testing. One measure of quality and reliability is whether it enjoys industry support.

Data access middleware from DataDirect Technologies meets these requirements. By all of these measures, it’s a middleware of choice. This is reflected by the number of key companies in the computing industry, such as Adobe, BEA, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and Sun, that license and distribute DataDirect middleware.

The checklist that follows provides a summary of features with an indication whether a DataDirect driver or data provider provides each feature. A more detailed discussion is found in section 3 of “Middleware in Action: Industrial Strength Data Access”.

Multi-Platform Flexibility

Security

Reliability

Middleware in Action: Industrial Strength Data Access

Middleware Under the Microscope