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Crystal Ball Gazing: Middle East Middleware Trends in 2012
Published Feb 8, 2012
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The role of middleware software as a crucial component of automating businesses will continue in 2012, but the ways in which it plays a part in automating businesses will inevitably change. New platforms, technologies and ideologies continue to present themselves, and enterprises' needs and demands for middleware are evolving.
Judging from the advancements in Mobile Computing in 2011, it is safe to assume that the market will grow exponentially in 2012. Developers are moving from building small mobile apps for iOS and Android, to full-scale integration with backend applications – integration that will tie into customer relationship management, enterprise resource management systems and more. More people and applications will not only be using mobile phones, but also incorporating many types of remote devices, including remote sensors. Middleware will be necessary to support these types of applications through advanced messaging and complex event processing (CEP) technology.
This year, the industry is likely to witness the intersection between middleware and big data. CIOs and decision-makers look at big data as a way to store and analyze vast amounts of information. Middleware can help to leverage and extend that information into applications via a more robust process and analytics platform.
Cloud computing- the buzzword of 2011 in the IT world- will continue to be huge. As Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solutions continue to mature, and the need for PaaS solutions to support more enterprise-related applications continues to increase, cloud-based solutions will grow beyond the core application server to include other middleware capabilities such as integration, workflow and process management. This is because organizations are eager take advantage of everything cloud has to offer – more effective economics, the shift to operational expenses from capital expenses, increased ability to scale, quicker time to market, etc. As was the case during the early stages of on-premise applications a lot of organizations have raised concerns regarding the development of cloud standards. Although the market is still young, standards will play a key role in its subsequent success.
A side-effect of increased migration to the cloud is that more developers are handling deployments in addition to development. As the emergence of this new role of developer operations, or dev-ops, becomes more apparent, developers will begin taking on more and more responsibilities. In addition, greater levels of abstraction, as a result of PaaS and cloud in general, will allow less skilled developers to create resources like sophisticated e-commerce websites without the skills needed in the past. Innovation leaders in the middleware and cloud market will come up with solution platforms which make it easier for developers to complete these tasks in the cloud, allowing more people to become involved in building applications than ever before.
A major pain point echoing through industry has been the need to scale businesses. As the global economy meanders through continued malaise, organizations are battling to maintain growth- emphasizing the need to scale without increasing fixed costs. CIOs are focused on avoiding vendor lock-in and Enterprises continue to express interest in more standards-based, open technologies.,
Talking about important standards in 2012, HTML 5 will see greater adoption, especially as a standard to support mobile applications. The benefit of HTML 5 is that it provides the richness of an application but also offers greater portability across various mobile platforms. Another standard that is receiving increased attention is Business Process Model and Notation 2 (BPMN2). This standard has made a place for itself amidst other technologies, such as Business Process Execution Language (BPEL).An increased interest in technologies like Advanced Messaging Queuing Protocol (AMQP) is expected. There has also been significant demand for a standards-based wire protocol in industries like financial services and transportation. People are tired of proprietary messaging protocols. There is also a lot of discussion around cloud standards. Although the market is still young, one may expect to see more standards starting to mature here for the benefit of interoperability and choice for the customer.
The IT forecast for 2012 is bright for vendors who pay heed to the consumer and make a conscious effort to align their cloud offerings to allow new economies of scale in IT and contribute true value to their customers' business.
Posted by
VMD - [Virtual Marketing Department]
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