In partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Science
Haibing Wang
will defend his thesis
A Component-based Middleware Design
for Internet Commerce
Abstract
The dramatic success of the Internet and the World Wide Web has brought virtually every segment of society into the era of open networking. Companies today are racing to engage in it by expending their businesses online; this created so called Internet Commerce (IC). IC means unpredictable and uncontrollable transaction load, low-speed high-latency network connections; IC must also maintain mission-critical characteristics. All this is turning vendors and developers toward Middleware. M iddleware is the glue that binds thin clients (web browsers) to the database where database connection is needed. Component-based Middleware is having an even bigger impact on IC because it adds capabilities to the user interface that would otherwise have been impossible with web browsers. Component-based Middleware also plays a big role in integrating different object models.
The objective of this thesis is to establish a set of component design guidelines for Component-based Middleware. The existing industrial standards and implementations are analyzed, the design guidelines for Component-based system are s tudied and are applied to the direct implementation of a sample e-commerce internet site. Microsoft Visual Basic was used as the main development tool. The primary contribution of this thesis is the analysis of how Middleware characteristics are implement ed by components and how various object models (CORBA, DOCM, EJB) can be employed to create an effective IC site.
Date: Monday, April 26, 1999
Time: 3:00 - 4:00 PM
Place: 550-PGH
Faculty, students, and the general public are invited.
Thesis Advisor: Dr. Ernst L. Leiss