What Is Middleware?

In computer science, systems are typically divided into two categories: software and hardware, state Alexandros Gazis and Eleftheria Katsiri.

There’s also a layer in between, they note, known as middleware, “which is a software pipeline, an operation, a process, or an application between the operating system and the end user.” 

Your definition of middleware, however, may depend on your point of view. For example, the authors  say, a “DevOps engineer would describe middleware as the layer that "glues" together software by different system components.” A network engineer might define middleware as “communication management software.” And, a data engineer might see middleware as the “technology responsible for coordinating, triggering, and orchestrating actions to process and publish data from various sources.”

This article further defines middleware and examines its uses and capabilities.

Learn more at ACM Queue.

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