What Ceddie said - the nerve center of RFID technology - middleware

JasonYoo

What Ceddie said - the nerve center of RFID technology - middleware [Copy link]

RFID is one of the top ten strategic technologies that enterprises are recommended to consider introducing in 2005, and middleware can be called the core of RFID operation because it can accelerate the emergence of key applications.

The RFID industry has unlimited potential, and its application scope covers manufacturing, logistics, medical care, transportation, retail, national defense, etc. Gartner Group believes that RFID is one of the top ten strategic technologies that enterprises are recommended to consider introducing in 2005. However, the key to its success is not only the price of tags, antenna design, band standardization, and equipment certification, but also the most important thing is to have killer application software to promote it quickly. Middleware can be called the core of RFID operation because it can accelerate the emergence of key applications.

What is RFID middleware?

Seeing the various RFID applications currently available, the first question that enterprises want to ask is: "How do I connect my existing system with these new RFID readers?" The essence of this question is the problem of the interface between the enterprise application system and the hardware. Therefore, transparency is the key to the entire application. Correctly capturing data, ensuring the reliability of data reading, and effectively transmitting data to the back-end system are all issues that must be considered. Traditionally, data transparency between applications (Application to Application) is solved through middleware architecture, and various Application Server application software has been developed; similarly, the architecture design solution of middleware has become an extremely important core technology for RFID applications.

RFID middleware plays the role of an intermediary between RFID tags and applications. From the application side, using a set of common application programming interfaces (APIs) provided by the middleware, it can connect to the RFID reader and read the RFID tag data. In this way, even if the database software or back-end application that stores RFID tag information is increased or replaced by other software, or the types

of RFID readers and writers increase, the application side can handle it without modification, eliminating the complexity of maintaining many-to-many connections. RFID middleware is a message-oriented middleware (MOM). Information is transmitted from one program to another or multiple programs in the form of messages. Information can be transmitted asynchronously, so the transmitter does not have to wait for a response. The functions of message-oriented middleware include not only passing information, but also interpreting data, security, data broadcasting, error recovery, locating network resources, finding cost-effective paths, message and request priorities, and extended debugging tools.

RFID middleware can be divided into two types from the perspective of architecture:

Application-centric The design concept is to directly write an adapter for a specific reader to read data in a hot code manner through the API provided by the RFID Reader manufacturer, and transmit it to the application or database of the back-end system, so as to achieve the purpose of connecting with the back-end system or service.

Infrastructure-centric As the complexity of enterprise application systems increases, enterprises cannot afford to write adapters for each application in a hot code manner. At the same time, facing problems such as object standardization, enterprises can consider using RFID middleware with standard specifications provided by manufacturers. In this way, even if the database software that stores RFID tag information is replaced by other software, or the types of RFID readers that read and write RFID tags increase, the application end can cope with it without modification.

Characteristics of RFID middleware

Generally speaking, RFID middleware has the following characteristics:

Independence from the infrastructure RFID middleware is independent and between the RFID reader and the back-end application, and can be connected to multiple RFID readers and multiple back-end applications to reduce the complexity of the architecture and maintenance.

Data flow The main purpose of RFID is to convert physical objects into virtual objects in the information environment, so data processing is the most important function of RFID. RFID middleware has the characteristics of data collection, filtering, integration and transmission, so as to transmit the correct object information to the back-end application system of the enterprise.

Process flow RFID middleware uses program logic and store-and-forward functions to provide sequential message flows, and has the ability to design and manage data flows.

Standard RFID is an application of automatic data sampling technology and identification of physical objects. EPCglobal is currently studying the universal standard for the global unique identification number of various products, namely EPC (electronic product code). EPC is a string of numbers used to identify a specific product in the supply chain system. After being read by the RFID reader through the wireless radio frequency identification tag, the process of transmitting it to the computer or application system is called Object Name Service (ONS). The object naming service system will lock a fixed point in the computer network to capture information about the product. EPC is stored in the RFID tag. After being read by the RFID reader, it can provide tracking of the name of the item represented by the EPC and related information, and immediately identify and share the data of items in the supply chain, providing information transparency efficiently.

Three development stages

From the development trend, RFID middleware can be divided into three categories:

Application Middleware Development Stage


The initial development of RFID is mostly aimed at integrating and connecting RFID readers. In this stage, RFID reader manufacturers actively provide simple APIs for enterprises to connect the back-end system with the RFID reader. From the perspective of the overall development architecture, the introduction of enterprises at this time must spend a lot of costs to deal with the connection between the front-end and back-end systems. Usually, enterprises will use the Pilot Project method to evaluate the cost-effectiveness and key issues of introduction at this stage.


Infrastructure Middleware Development Stage

This stage is a critical stage for the growth of RFID middleware. Due to the powerful application of RFID, key users such as Wal Mart and the US Department of Defense have successively planned RFID technology and introduced Pilot Project, prompting international manufacturers to continue to pay attention to the development of RFID-related markets. The development of RFID middleware in this stage not only has basic data collection and filtering functions, but also meets the enterprise's many-to-many (Devices-to-Applications) connection needs, and has platform management and maintenance functions.

Solution Middleware Development Stage

In the future, as RFID tags, readers and middleware mature, various manufacturers will propose various innovative application solutions for different fields. For example, Manhattan Associates proposed "RFID in a Box", so that enterprises no longer need to worry about the connection between front-end RFID hardware and back-end application systems. The company cooperated with Alien Technology Corp on the RFID hardware side to develop middleware based on the Microsoft .Net platform and developed Supply Chain Execution (SCE) Solution for the company's 900 existing supply chain customer base. Enterprises that originally used Manhattan Associates SCE Solution only need to use "RFID in a Box" to quickly use RFID on the original application system to enhance the transparency of supply chain management.

Two application directions

According to the forecast of ABI Research Inc., the RFID market size created by the needs of various industries around the world before 2008 can reach 20 billion US dollars, of which the software market accounts for about 4.7 billion US dollars. In 2007, the revenue of RFID integration services will exceed the revenue of RFID products. As hardware technology matures, the huge software market opportunities have prompted domestic and foreign information service manufacturers to continue to pay attention and invest in advance. RFID middleware is the nerve center in various RFID industry applications, especially attracting the attention of international manufacturers. In the future, it can develop in the following directions in terms of application:

Service Oriented Architecture Based

The goal of RFID middleware service-oriented architecture (SOA) is to establish communication standards, break through the barriers of application-to-application communication, realize business process automation, support business model innovation, make IT more flexible, and thus respond to needs faster. Therefore, in the future development of RFID middleware, it will be based on the trend of service-oriented architecture to provide enterprises with more flexible and flexible services.

Security Infrastructure

The most questionable thing about RFID applications is the commercial information security issues that may be caused by the large number of manufacturer databases connected to the RFID backend system, especially the information privacy of consumers. Through the deployment of a large number of RFID readers, human life and behavior will be easily tracked due to RFID. The initial RFID Pilot Projects of Wal Mart and Tesco (the largest retailer in the UK) have suffered resistance and protests due to user privacy issues. For this reason, manufacturers such as Philips Semiconductor have begun to add "shielding" functions to mass-produced RFID chips. RSA Security has also released the "RSA Blocker Tag", a technology that can successfully interfere with RFID signals. By emitting radio frequencies to disrupt RFID readers, RFID readers mistakenly believe that what they have collected is junk information and miss the data, thus protecting consumers' privacy. Currently, the Auto-ID Center is also studying security mechanisms to cooperate with the work of RFID middleware. I believe that security will be one of the key points of RFID's future development and a key factor for success. [I]