At The Center: Middleware Serves As RFID Traffic Cop

A new class of middleware will serve as the traffic cop for radio-frequency identification data, helping to filter, aggregate, and direct information and prevent it from overloading business networks and applications.

The middleware, which is being developed by both startups and established vendors, will have built-in business rules that monitor the steady stream of signals RFID chips generate and prevent data from being passed on to systems that have no need for it. For example, middleware could monitor signals from an RFID chip on a shipment of perishable goods and forward to a warehouse-management system only the signals that indicate the pallet's goods have expired. The warehouse-management system would then alert employees to the problem.

Many products under development are based on specifications, called Savant, developed by the Auto-ID Center, an organization formed by MIT that took the lead in RFID standards and last year was absorbed by EPCglobal Inc., a nonprofit organization that's carrying on those efforts. The Savant specifications define how data will move between the middleware, RFID readers, and enterprise applications.

SAP last month debuted middleware using the Savant specs. It routes RFID data to back-end systems and monitors exceptions to business processes triggered by RFID data. German retailer Metro Group, which has been aggressively planning an RFID strategy, is testing the SAP product.

Later this month, ConnecTerra Inc. will make available its RFTagAware software, which it developed in conjunction with Procter & Gamble Co., another leader in implementing RFID technology. ConnecTerra president and CEO Linda Bernardi says that while the software will use the Savant standard, it also will provide a platform for companies to build, deploy, and manage RFID applications, with features for managing data-security and integration issues. Also last month, Progress Software Corp. introduced a Savant-compliant version of its ObjectStore database as a repository for RFID data.

Sun Microsystems is developing Java-based Savant middleware for release in June. With RFID data processing, "there's a lot of dirty work to do in the middle, and that's what we do best," says Vijay Sarathy, Sun's RFID product manager.

Other vendors to watch include GenuOne, GlobeRanger, and OatSystems, which developed the Senseware RFID middleware product. Sanjay Sarma, co-founder of the Auto-ID Center, joined the 3-year-old company's board in November.

Illustration by Campbell Laird

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