Emerging application architectures are multitiered featuring thin clients that require no application installation or support, application servers that manage business logic, and data sources that store data on various platforms. A key ingredient to make multitier applications adaptable to rapid changes will be a middleware, component-based architecture. A major challenge for application developers will be understanding the pieces of the middleware puzzle in order for their applications to incorporate good business decisions and practices. At this months meeting, Beth Gold-Bernstein, IllumiSys Corp , will explain the major concepts of distributed, component based, multitier architecture and highlight the issues application developers will need to be aware of.

Application architectures of the future will be distributed and integrated. Furthermore, they will be component-based in order to quickly adapt to rapid changes in business and technology. The goal of this architecture is to allow new applications to be easily assembled from prefabricated components. The prefabricated components will be either purchased, "wrapped" legacy applications, or custom-built, and reside on different technology platforms within and outside the organization. Properly designed, component-based architectures will easily integrate legacy, current, and emerging technology.

Enabling seamless integration and communication among these components requires an extensive infrastructure or middleware architecture to connect the multiple tiers of the application. This emerging middle-tier middleware is called various names: transaction server, application server, component server, and business rules server. Regardless of the name, terminology, or technology used in the current vendor solutions, the same set of services is required to deliver the full functional abilities of a distributed component architecture. These abilities include scalability, adaptability, recoverability, and manageability.

For a detailed overview of the distributed component middleware architecture visit http://www.dbpd.com/9802feat.htm and attend the May meeting.