The Reconstitution of Middleware with APIs
Story of a middleware developer
Asanka Abeysinghe | Chief Technology Evangelist | WSO2, Inc | @asankama
July, 28 2021 https://wso2.com/
2019
1997 2003
Architect
2012
VP Solutions
Architecture
2001 2008
Director
Solutions
Architecture
Deputy CTO
Open Source
Distributed Computing
Programmer
COBOL
OLE, OLE2


COM, COM+


DCOM


CORBA
Java Developer
J2EE


MMS
286-DX4
Eventing


FIX


HL7
CONNECT-health
Global architecture team


500+ customers


Champions program
Chief Architect
2005
QSP


AR


Trusted advocate
Game hacker


C++ programmer
Age-16
Hedge fund tools
Ref. Architecture


Ref. Methodology


Evangelize
2018
Middleware Developer/Architect
Entrepreneur
Chief Technology
Evangelist
2020
Connecting humans & technology


Architecting the transformation
Next 20-minutes
Story of a middleware developer
Intro
Beginning
Middleware
Architecture
Cloud
APIs
Contribution
3
Intro
Beginning
Middleware
Architecture
Cloud
APIs
Contribution
4
February 1997
First day at work
picture credit: https://www.richard-banks.org
First week at work
ISAM
DCom INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION.


FILE-CONTROL.


SELECT file-name ASSIGN TO dd-name


ORGANIZATION IS INDEXED


ACCESS MODE IS SEQUENTIAL


RECORD KEY IS rec-key1


ALTERNATE RECORD KEY IS rec-key2
March 1997
Middleware factory
Intro
Beginning
Middleware
Architecture
Cloud
APIs
Contribution
10
July 2014
picture credit: http://www.levisstadium.com/getting-here/
picture credit: https://www.ronniestewartracing.com/events/2016/4/2/levi-stadium-supercross-race
picture credit: https://www.ninersnation.com
Platform to perform
Connecting an experience
Colin Kaepernick Eli Tomac Chris Martin
Middleware is computer software that provides
services to software applications beyond those
available from the operating system. It can be
described as "software glue”.

Middleware makes it easier for software developers to
implement communication and input/output, so they
can focus on the specific purpose of their
application.
Type of Middleware
Message Oriented Object Oriented
Remote Procedure Call Database
Transaction Portals
Embedded Content-centric
Fall 2008
Modular Middleware
Intro
Beginning
Middleware
Architecture
Cloud
APIs
Contribution
20
Summer 2021
COMPOSABLE ENTERPRISE WITH CLOUD NATIVE

Autonomous releases, CI/CD, self-organization, change-control authority
App (n)
App


Microservice
INTEGRATION


MESSAGING


DATA


SECURITY
App 2
App


Miniservices
INTEGRATION


MESSAGING


DATA


SECURITY
APIs
Self-


Organizing


Dev Teams
. . .
Ops


Team
Event-Based Hybrid Integration Platform
Scaling | HA | Resilience | Observability
Orchestration & High-Performance Data Store
Ops Infrastructure
Architecture Blocks Enable the Composable Enterprise
App Logic
. . .
Scaling HA Resilience Observability


Scaling HA Resilience Observability


HA Resilience Observability


Compute Network Storage
Ops Infrastructure
Centralized


Dev Org
Middleware


& Integration


CoE Teams
Ops


Team
LAYERED ENTERPRISE WITH CENTER OF EXCELLENCE

Coordinated releases, organizational rigor, centralized change control
HA Resilience Observability
Scaling
INTEGRATION
HA Resilience Observability
Scaling
MESSAGING
HA Resilience Observability
Scaling
DATA
HA Resilience Observability
Scaling
SECURITY
App Logic
App Logic
App 1 App 2 App (n)
DevOps
App (1)
App


Microservice
INTEGRATION


MESSAGING


DATA


SECURITY
Intro
Beginning
Middleware
Architecture
Cloud
APIs
Contribution
23
Lift and shift
Source:Clod Strategy - Gregor Hohpe
MIDDLEWARE IS DISAPPEARING
In the long run


- into code (simpler constructs, more power)
- into infrastructure (scaling, management, observability)
Sidecar
Source:https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/designing-distributed-systems/9781491983638/ch02.html
Sidecars
Picture credit: https://badbikegang.wordpress.com/tag/visor/
Source:Clod Strategy - Gregor Hohpe
Infrastructure
Source: https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/overview/components/
MIDDLEWARE IS DISAPPEARING
In the long run


- into code (simpler constructs, more power)
- into infrastructure (scaling, management, observability)
Intro
Beginning
Middleware
Architecture
Cloud
APIs
Contribution
30
Evolution of APIs
APIs the glue of (µ) components deployed in
a decentralized architecture
https://github.com/wso2/reference-architecture/blob/master/reference-architecture-cell-based.md
Internal

External

Req/res

Events

Streams

Edge

Domain 

Utility
MIDDLEWARE IS DISAPPEARING
- into code (simpler constructs, more power)
- into infrastructure (scaling, management, observability)
APIs the glue of (µ) components.
http://ballerina.io 

‘Cloud-native Programming Language’ 



https://wso2.com/choreo 

‘Low-code Cloud-native Engineering for Professional Developers’
Contribution
@asankama 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/asankaabeysinghe/

https://blog.architect2architect.com

https://wso2.com
#connect
https://github.com/wso2/reference-architecture/blob/master/reference-architecture-cell-based.md

‘Decentralized Reference Architecture for Cloud-native Applications’

The Reconstitution of Middleware with APIs V2