Enterprise Middleware & Web/Cloud Services
Enterprise Middleware and Service Oriented Applications such as Web Services and Cloud Services all refer to server-based software that securely and robustly serves content and data either to end user software such as Application Software or Web Applications, or to other server-based software to provide Business-to-Business (B2B) Systems Integration over the Internet. The water muddies a bit here, but terms such as Enterprise System, Server-Side, Backend System, Back Office System, Infrastructure, Application Tier, Data Tier, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Web Service, Cloud Service, and "the Cloud" may all be used to refer to Enterprise Middleware and Service Oriented Applications.
There are many general examples of these Enterprise Middleware and Service Oriented Applications; some are more consumer facing than others, such as Salesforce.com, but many will be less familiar as they tend to be B2B services such as Windows Azure, the Google App Engine, Amazon EC2, and Rackspace.
Business applications, as they are generally conceptualized by customers and other end users, seem to be just the Application Software or Web Applications that the end users interact with; in truth, however, most data dependent business applications require some form of Enterprise Middleware or Service Oriented Application to exist to provide data to those end users and to receive instructions from those end users as to how to manipulate the data for the business purpose.
The key driver for the development of Enterprise Middleware or a Service Oriented Application as part of a software solution then, is not so much whether to develop it, but how much of it to develop.
As a matter of fact, the only reason not to develop Enterprise Middleware or a Service Oriented Application as part of a software solution, is that the software solution has been determined to have no need of any network served data and will be completely self-contained (not likely but possible for Application Software -- Web Applications by their nature will require Enterprise Middleware) or that the Enterprise Middleware or Service Oriented Application already exists and can be "consumed" by the software solution.
Century has developed many Enterprise Middleware and Service Oriented Applications. We can guide you through the process of needs assessment, design and prototyping, and provide the development, integration, testing, deployment, training, and maintenance of your complete software solution.
Century uses best-in-class technologies and associated best practices to implement our software solutions. Our Enterprise Middleware and Service Oriented Applications are generally built on the Microsoft .NET Framework and might utilize technology stacks such as ASP.NET MVC (Model View Controller), EntityFramework (EF), Unity IoC Container, Windows Azure, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Internet Information Services (IIS) or Microsoft SQL Server, among others. If a non-Microsoft or Operating System independent solution is needed we might develop your solution using the Java Enterprise Edition (JEE) platform with technology stacks like the Java API for RESTful Web Services (JAX-RS), Java API for XML-Based Web Services (JAX-WS) or Java Database Connectivity (JDBC). In addition to the platform technologies, we often use proven third-party and Open Source APIs to enhance the quality and capability of the solution -- these APIs include or are based on proven standards such as HTTP/SSL, REST, SOAP, XML, LINQ, SQL, Apache Software Foundation APIs and Containers, etc.
