What is Reconfigurable Middleware Systems

This chapter describes the implementation of a large fleet application based on SyD (System on Mobile Devices), a middleware technology for mobile devices. Although one is made to believe that a collaborative application that runs on a collection of heterogeneous mobile devices can be easily developed with the existing middleware technologies, the reality is that they require too many ad-hoc techniques as well as cumbersome and time-consuming programming. The authors’ SyD middleware has a modular architecture that makes such application development very systematic and streamlined. Features of SyD are illustrated here through the prototype application, a complex communication system for a trucking fleet that operates a package delivery system. The fleet system has been implemented employing three technologies, SOAP, JDBC, and SyD. Implementation experience shows that SyD greatly simplifies development and implementation by allowing heterogeneous devices, peer-to-peer communications, group transactions based on event triggers, and mobility support.