Middleware

The Sombers Group, a custom software house, has been building large real-time systems for its customers for over thirty years. Our multi-platform expertise includes HP NonStop, HP OpenVMS, IBM, Unisys, Stratus, Sun, UNIX, and PC systems.

Many of the systems that we implemented involved multiple computers from a variety of manufacturers. These computers, which used proprietary languages and operating systems, nevertheless had to interoperate with each other in the application. Consequently, over the years, we accumulated a powerful set of tools to build these heterogeneous systems. We decided to package these tools into a product which we called NetWeave. Since then, NetWeave has since been in service around the world for over a decade.

Middleware

The Sombers Group created NetWeave middleware in the late 1980s. In order to market NetWeave, Sombers created NetWeave Corporation. The product was one of the very first middleware solutions to be introduced to the marketplace, and it is one of the very few of those original middleware entrants that continues to be sold today. In 2000, the product was sold and is now actively marketed by NetWeave Integrated Solutions, Inc.

NetWeave is a broad-based messaging and database middleware product that enables distributed applications to be implemented across the enterprise. Its focus is on allowing companies to integrate the operational data and business rules that are spread out over their diverse computer platforms into a seamless whole. What is created as a result is a common knowledge base available to users of workstations, LANs and SQL servers.

NetWeave is distinguished among its middleware competitors by several major characteristics:

It is the only middleware product that provides both messaging and database services, a requirement for many large, distributed systems. NetWeave's messaging services are both synchronous and asynchronous.

It supports a broader range of host and workstation platforms than any other middleware product. Any platform can act as a client or as a server. Interconnections can by made by any of the common LAN or WAN protocols.

It is designed specifically to support the high performance, real-time, scalability, reliability, data integrity, and heterogeneous needs of mission-critical distributed applications.

Using standard LAN or WAN protocols, NetWeave provides messaging services and database services across IBM, Compaq Himalaya (classic Tandem), Compaq Open VMS (classic Digital), Stratus, Unisys, Compaq Integrity, Compaq Tru64, Sequent, and other UNIX hosts and Windows 9X/NT/2000, IBM RS6000, HP9000, Sun, UNIX, and Linux workstations.

NetWeave's messaging services include interactive transaction messaging and broadcast messaging as well as guaranteed messaging via resilient queues. NetWeave's database services provide for direct access and update of remote data, whether that data is held in an SQL data base or in a legacy file system.

Ancillary services include transaction protection, directory services, data conversion services, security services, and reliable file transfer.

In 2000, NetWeave was sold and is now actively marketed by NetWeave Integrated Solutions, Inc. Sombers continues to offer NetWeave as one of its middleware options in new systems which it is building.

For more information on NetWeave, MQSeries, and other middleware products, give us a call. We can help you determine what solutions are available to suit the needs of your mission-critical, multi-platform environment.