Middleware: Essential Infrastructure for Ubiquitous Computing Systems

As part of the EPSRC funded UBINET Summer School in 2004 I am giving a 1.5 hour lecture on Middleware. This page will host the lecture notes, some web references, and bibliography for this lecture.

The Abstract

Middleware has been defined as software that facilitates interoperability by mediating between an application program and a network, thus masking differences or incompatibilities in network transport protocols, hardware architecture, operating systems, database systems, and other system components. Ubiquitous computing systems increase the number of, and degrees of variability between, these systems components. Couple these issues with the problems of increased scale and speed of adaptation implied by the ubiquitous computing vision only serves to highlight the critical role middleware in its various forms will play in the realisation of truly ubiquitous systems.

This lecture will provide a historical perspective on middleware through some examplar systems; it will elaborate the new problems posed by ubiquitous computing systems and detail existing work in the area; and it will conclude by presenting a personal view on the open research issues for systems software in this domain.

The Lecture

The Slides for the talk are here: [1-up] [4-up].

The Core Web References

Background material

Tanenbaum
Emmerich
Couloris/Dollimore/Kindberg

Key papers for talk

Kindberg/Fox
Grimm
Dearle et al

Examplar projects

One.World
Intentional Naming Service
PSI
Jade
GAIA
iROS