Abstract
In recent years, middleware has emerged as an important architectural element in modern computer systems. For the purposes of this paper, we define middleware to be a layer of software residing on every machine and sitting between the underlying (heterogeneous) operating system platforms and distributed applications/ services, offering a platform-independent programming model to programmers, and masking out the problems relating to distribution. Examples of middleware platforms include CORBA, DCOM, Java RMI and Jini. One notable problem however with such middleware technologies is the complete lack of support for multimedia programming. A number of extensions have been proposed to such platforms, but they are often rather flawed in that they tend to treat multimedia as a service, rather than as a fundamental aspect of the underlying middleware infrastructure.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Blair, G.S., Stefani, J.B., “Open Distributed Processing and Multimedia, Addison-Wesley, 1997.
Katz, R., “Adaptation and Mobility in Wireless Information Systems,” IEEE Personal Communications Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 6–17, 1994.
Blair, G.S., F. Costa, G. Coulson, H. Duran, N. Parlavantzas, F. Delpiano, B. Dumant, F. Horn, J.B. Stefani, “The Design of a Resource-Aware Reflective Middleware Architecture”, Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Meta-Level Architectures and Reflection (Reflection’99), St-Malo, France, Springer-Verlag, LNCS, Vol. 1616, pp. 115–134, 1999.
Blair, G.S., Coulson, G., Robin, P., Papathomas, M., “An Architecture for Next Generation Middleware”, Proc. IFIP International Conference on Distributed Systems Platforms and Open Distributed Processing (Middleware’98), Springer, 1998.
Blair, G.S., Blair, L., Issarny, V., Tuma, P., Zarras, A., “The Role of Software Architecture in Constraining Adaptation in Component-based Middleware Platforms”, Proceedings of the IFTP/ACM International Conference on Distributed Systems Platforms and Open Distributed Processing (Middleware’2000), IBM Palisades, New York, April2000.
See http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/rm 2000.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2000 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Blair, G.S. (2000). On the Failure of Middleware to Support Multimedia Applications. In: Interactive Distributed Multimedia Systems and Telecommunication Services. IDMS 2000. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1905. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-40002-8_20
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-40002-8_20
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-41130-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-40002-8
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive