A Middleware for Middleware

People of different languages need a translator to communicate. But sometimes, even people with the same language have a hard time communicating. For these challenging situations, people need a broker.

In the same way, disparate software systems need middleware to facilitate interoperablility and effective communication (i.e. getting IBM z/OS applications to talk to applications running on MS Windows). But now, organizations are adopting a variety of middleware standards, and throw in M&A (when multiple companies become one they often have different standards and interoperability issues), even middleware is challenged with interoperability.

Then there is this technology called Mule. Mule is an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) messaging framework. It can be thought of as a highly distributable object broker that can seamlessly handle interactions with other applications using disparate transport and messaging technologies.

Grid Computing

Acording to Wikipedia, Grid Computing offers a model for solving massive computational problems using large numbers of computers arranged as clusters embedded in a distributed telecommunications infrastructure. Grid computing's focus on the ability to support computation across administrative domains sets it apart from traditional distributed computing.

Grid computing has the design goal of solving problems too big for any single supercomputer, whilst retaining the flexibility to work on multiple smaller problems. Thus grid computing provides a multi-user environment.

Another good resource for information on Grid Computing is the latest issue of the IBM Systems Journal. One nice feature of the SJ is that it provides both web and PDF versions of their publications.