06/26/95 BROKERING BABEL: Programs that give networks one voice

BROKERING BABEL
Programs that give networks one voice
The great promise of computer networks has always been flexibility--that they would provide easy access to all sorts of information and electronic services--both within companies and, increasingly, across corporate boundaries. But that very flexibility creates monumental problems for programmers. And where there's a problem, there's an opportunity to create a whole new category of software--or at least a buzzword.
In this case, it's called middleware. The nebulous name relates to its role as a critical middleman, mediating among the many kinds of hardware and software now found on large networks. It is a creature born of chaos, for most corporations today have built, without quite planning to, what the folks in computing call ``heterogeneous networks''--sprawling setups containing all sizes and brands of computers and software. In the past, a billing application, say, would have been run on a single mainframe computer and would have relied on software supplied mainly by a single company, most likely IBM. Today, the networked version of that application may need to call on software from a dozen suppliers, whose products may or may not be compatible with one another.
Middleware aims to give this hodgepodge at least the appearance of harmony, even as its individual components change and expand in number over time. That looks to be the main programming challenge of the '90s. Without middleware's ability to pave over the incompatibilities among computers and to accommodate the shifting complexities of big networks, client-server computing networks would grind to a halt. So middleware is hot: Market researcher International Data Corp. forecasts a middleware market that will grow from $50 million last year to as much as $1.7 billion by 2000.
GLOBAL COHABITATION. The more complex the network, the greater the need for middleware. By now, getting a sales department's two-dozen PCs to share files on a small server is practically a no-brainer. All the software one needs can be found at the local computer store. But try getting more than 2,000 computers, ranging from mainframes to all sorts of desktop workstations, to cohabit on a worldwide network--itself made up of numerous subnetworks.
That's the very problem New York investment bank J.P. Morgan & Co. is tackling in an attempt to turn itself into a ``real-time operation.'' Says Jeffrey G. Chittenden, Morgan's chief computer architect: ``We want all of our information to be available anytime and anywhere.'' That means heavy use of middleware, Chittenden says, to help Morgan's programmers create complex new information systems on the fly--in a few minutes, if possible. If historical data can be grabbed from one computer, an econometric analysis pulled in from another, and current pricing information taken from a third, for instance, the company might capture a fleeting trading opportunity or price a new derivative before the competition can. But only if a new set of links can be set up almost immediately.
Morgan's programmers would never get the job done on time if they had to keep track of exactly how each program names, stores, secures, and delivers the data it manages. So Morgan is installing middleware products such as Connection, from Belmont (Calif.) startup Open Horizon. In essence, these products provide programmers anywhere on the network with a menu of ``services''--such as data security and directories to locate network resources--that any new program can call on. By delivering common services in a standard format, middleware may raise programmers' productivity by as much as 30%, Chittenden says. Mark Teflian, CEO of Covia Technologies, a leading middleware supplier spun off from United Air Lines' reservation system, agrees: ``You want to be able to write applications as if the network weren't there.''
``SCREEN SCRAPERS.'' Making the complex appear simple becomes increasingly important as new types of networks, such as wireless setups, add more protocols to the corporate networking stew. Plus as laptop computers increasingly become a key tool for workers on the road, corporate networks must be able to deliver vital information at unpredictable times and to unpredictable locations--another job for middleware. What's more, these programs can help applications survive network failures by ensuring that important messages don't get lost and--of particular interest to banks processing cash-machine withdrawals--don't get delivered more than once.
Middleware becomes even more crucial as corporate networks start interacting with one another. In building a system to collect clinical health data electronically from thousands of independent doctors, hospitals, laboratories, and pharmacies, for instance, Kaiser Permanente has turned to IBM's MQ Series software. Based on work originally done by New York-based Apertus Technologies Inc., MQ creates a sort of postal system that can move messages and coordinate tasks between 18 incompatible types of computers--including those from IBM's major competitors. At the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, MQ helps some 75 member firms, using a variety of computers, exchange trading information with one another.
In fact, many different software products are coming out under the middleware sobriquet. These range from so-called screen scrapers, which let PCs pretend to be mainframe terminals, to AT&T's Top End. That program, a so-called transaction monitor, keeps track of transactions between computers to make sure they are completed the way they are supposed to be.
All of these programs try to marry the old to the new, the near to the distant, and the proprietary to the open--and, of course, to make networks easier to program. If a network starts delivering on that promise of easy access to any information anywhere at anytime, you can bet middleware is on the case.

By John W. Verity in New York