NSF middleware initiative goes beyond science

BOSTON - A multifaceted, federally funded initiative aimed at developing and deploying open-source, open-standards middleware and services so that scientists can share data and collaborate on research has released the fifth version of its software, as the effort spreads into corporate use and beyond U.S. borders.

The National Science Foundation's Middleware Initiative, or NMI, was launched in 2001 with $12 million in grants to be distributed over three years. Well before the end of the funding, NMI projects have swept into universities across the U.S., linking far more than scientists and researchers in an effort that now includes collaboration with software developers and scientists in the U.K., Europe and Asia.

Last week, NMI Release 5 rolled out as part of the initiative's twice-annual update of software, services and documentation. The software suite and individual components, tested and debugged before release, are distributed for free at the NMI Web site (http://www.nsf-middleware.org.) Middleware, as defined by the NMI, is software connecting two or more separate applications across the Internet, and on a larger level consists of a layer of services between a network and applications that manage security, access and information.

"It's the right people (involved in NMI) who have been around long enough to know what the real issues are," said Renee Shuey to explain the initiative's growing popularity. Shuey is the lead systems programmer in academic services and emerging technologies at The Pennsylvania State University, which has 24 campus locations.

Penn State is using Shibboleth, a federated ID management environment based on Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML), to allow its students access to physics class material at North Carolina State University and also for single sign-on and password access to the Napster music download service.

Although Shibboleth was being developed before NMI was up and running, it is a good example of an existing middleware component that is rolled in and developed with other software in NMI's releases. Shibboleth was developed by Internet2 middleware architects so that they could collaborate on Web-based projects across their university networks. Penn State came to use Shibboleth as part of that university's involvement in Internet2, a high-performance network developed for higher education use, and through that involvement Penn State is also by default involved in NMI.

Internet2 is part of NMI, which started with two systems-integration teams at multiple university locations: the Grid Research Integration Deployment and Support Center (GRIDS Center), and Enterprise and Desktop Integration Technologies, or EDIT. Internet2 and Educause, a nonprofit organization that supports higher education's "intelligent" use of IT, are part of EDIT, along with the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA), a consortium of more than 60 universities.

Last year, NMI added two more teams, the Open Grid Environments Collaboratory (OGCE) and Common Instrument Middleware Architecture (CIMA). The teams develop tools that make up the core of the GRIDS Center Software Suite, which features the Globus Toolkit, Condor-G and Network Weather Service.

The Globus Toolkit is an open-source enabling technology for computer grids that allows users to securely share computational power, databases and tools online across networks worldwide while maintaining local autonomy. It is the underpinning of commercial grid products, as well as a key piece of science and engineering projects worldwide.