MOBILE MIDDLEWARE
Mobile Middleware general definition:
support software stack, typically cross-layer and application-agnostic, which targets issues and challenges at OSI levels >= 4
WHY A MIDDLEWARE FOR MOBILE APPLICATIONS
Many of the problems that a mobile application need to resolve are always the same and are related to the network not always available and no guaranteed performance.
Given that, is not feasible for a business to address those problems each time there is the need to develop for mobile environments (e.g. follow the DRY principle)
A Middleware can also address different environment and hardware infrastructures and offer an homogeneous interface.
MOBILE VS FIXED MIDDLEWARE
A mobile middleware has lot of differences to address due to the different deployment environment
- Context dynamically changes
- Need of decoupling in space and in time
- Asynchronous events, spaces for data sharing
- provisioning of some level/degree of visibility of running conditions to lower layers
- partial visibility of location change
- modifications in the QoS levels currently available