GENESIS: Documentation

1 Middleware Terminology

The following software engineering terms are used in the GENESIS documentation:

Application server software: Software that provides services such as security or transaction handling to an application, so that the application can contain primarily business logic. An application server typically includes a web server, which handles HTTP requests from a browser.
Enterprise portal: Software that provides a framework and the tooling to build dynamic web solutions that deliver a unified, interactive interface to personalized information, applications, processes and people. It includes service oriented architecture (SOA) capabilities, role-based access and rule-based administration, collaboration functionality, content management and access to enterprise data sources, and integration with heterogeneous back-end business systems and processes.
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB): Software that evolved from and is closely related to message-oriented middleware, message brokering, and enterprise application integration (EAI). An ESB handles the matching and routing of communications between processes and services, converts between different transport protocols, transforms different data formats, and identifies and distributes business events.
Business Process Management (BPM) software: Software that includes integration, modeling, monitoring, forms, rules engine and workflow. This software is used to design, enact, control and analyze operational business processes involving humans, organizations, applications, content and other sources of information.
Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA): Software that provides a single platform to find, integrate and orchestrate SOA business services, enterprise applications, and other IT assets into automated business processes.