Ask the Experts
Ask
the experts is a column in the Financial Times IT Review supplement, which
focuses on addressing IT issues faced by business leaders. This short article,
written by Auridian’s MD and founder, Ade
McCormack, appeared in the 3rd March edition.
Today’s
question is:
"What is middleware and why
should I care?"
You are in a meeting with your CIO, and she mentions
middleware. You have three options:
- Pass
out
- Rebuke
her for attempting to embroil you in the minutiae of technology
- Nod
sagely. Guessing that it sits somewhere between the hardware and software.
Hoping that the subject becomes business relevant again sooner rather than
later.
As business becomes more IT-centric, option 1 could attract
the attention of the company doctor / shareholders. Option 2 will set
business-IT alignment in your organisation back several years. Option 3 is an
example of corporate governance abdication in action.
IT governance underpins corporate governance. IT governance
requires you to get best value out of your IT assets, which requires them to be
working under some form of architectural framework that is both secure,
reliable and responsive. Such architectures are underpinned by this stuff
called middleware. Hence you should care. Poor choice of middleware can lead to
poor governance.
So what is middleware? It can be thought of as messaging
software. Your enterprise applications, which are key to IT governance, are
sprinkled (or distributed) across the servers and user devices on your
network(s). When the trader submits a trade, the software on the user’s
computer needs to communicate with the database software on the server.
Middleware is the software that enables the two elements of the trading
application to communicate. Thus middleware can be thought of as corporate
glue. Without middleware sales would be decoupled from marketing, HR from
payroll and so on.
However middleware is a very ‘under the bonnet’ technology,
hence most people feel comfortable leaving it in the hands of the
technologists.
Be aware, that once your organisation is neurologically
underpinned by a proprietary middleware technology, the vendor is in a much
stronger position to sell you their (other)wares. Most ‘big ticket’ players are
orienting their offerings along architectural lines because of the natural
‘barriers to exit’ that middleware constructs. Whilst you can’t be expected to
be an expert in middleware you are well advised to establish with your IT
people to what extent their proposed choice will lead your organisation up a
technology cul-de-sac.
Ade McCormack
ade@auridian.com
www.auridian.com
Ade McCormack is the founder of Auridian Consulting, which
is focused on helping business people influence IT matters.
