Red Hat Executive: Annual overview of Middleware development in Asia Pacific

Improving business process management and achieving greater efficiency is the pursuit that users never meet, so enterprise-class software similar to middleware will be more and more popular with enterprise users. Middleware includes a range of independent components, such as application software servers for software configuration, an ESB, an information platform for integration, and a business process management platform for automating business processes.

According to research firm IDC's market research data, from 2011 to 2015, the Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) business process management platform and middleware market is expected to increase by 12.4% annual composite growth rate.

In the future, China, Australia and India will continue to be the main contributors to the growth of the middleware industry. In China and India, growth is largely attributable to the growth in enterprise-sector IT budgets and integration technologies. From the Southeast Asian market, Vietnam and the Philippines are expected to be the 2012 leaders. And with the potential for explosive growth in the future of emerging technologies such as cloud computing and mobile, the application of middleware is becoming increasingly important in the Philippine market.

Overall, the middleware market to achieve double-digit growth, mainly due to several important factors, such as the integration with IT business needs, the rise of cloud computing. Enterprise users are looking for a balance that enables business process optimization to support this growth and expansion while ensuring the fluency of business processes. Today's open source solutions are good for enterprise users to provide enterprise-class functionality, scalability and stability. In addition, efficient business process management solutions have now become a low-cost option for enterprise users, while reducing the total cost of ownership while providing long-term product choices and flexibility. This has further stimulated the enterprise to improve business processes and technical innovation enthusiasm, because only in this way in the unusually fierce competition to maintain a leading position and advantage.

Companies are increasingly focusing on emerging architectures such as cloud computing, which further drives users to apply middleware technology to build a bridge between cloud computing and internal solutions in a hybrid platform environment. The application of cloud computing is becoming more and more common in both government and small and medium sized enterprises, and it becomes the necessary condition for enterprise users to meet the dynamic demands of business. Enterprise users can leverage emerging cloud architectures to take full advantage of emerging technologies, while also increasing existing inputs on internal systems.

The hybrid use of platform technology is expected to grow rapidly in the future two, according to Fabriziobiscotti, Gartner's research director. For example, the combination of browser interface and mobile platform is the best example. As a result, platform-service solutions are expected to continue to mature and improve to support more enterprise-class applications. With middleware, a platform, a service product, can achieve higher levels of scalability and speed of application software configuration without the special needs of hardware and data centers.

In addition to the core application servers, future middleware vendors will continue to develop cloud solution technologies, including integration, workflow and process management, and other middleware functions. Integrating cloud applications with other internal applications and business processes is key to effectively leveraging cloud computing. Middleware such as the ESB and business process management platform is the foundation of such solutions.

With the development of the combination of multi-platform and use, enterprise users are seeking more standard open technology. We believe that it is imperative to avoid vendor lock-in while ensuring data security. If this is possible, enterprise users will gain greater flexibility to integrate existing disparate systems together, a versatility that allows the solution to be tailored to a particular industry. Therefore, flexibility is an important aspect of enterprise attention, which can enable enterprises to expand their business without increasing fixed cost.

Commonality is also critical to the use of middleware. For example, Red Hat's JBoss Enterprise middleware as a complete set of products to achieve the maximum function, not only through the compatibility of different products to achieve versatility, but also to help enterprise users according to their personalized needs to match the corresponding solution. This versatility can help the solution be tailored to a particular industry.

Middleware demonstrates the value of its current enterprise users by balancing growth and reducing complexity in the IT environment. Although middleware is still a relatively new technology, it is expected to become a popular choice for enterprise users in the Asia-Pacific region.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)