Checks for middleware

The question is whether existing middleware for the publish/subscribe function:

• is suitable for use in the BDI Framework. It should be possible to integrate the middleware with the authentication and authorization components
• can easily be applied in corporate environments across firewalls and can be scaled up for large networks. The need to open new ports in firewalls is a large barrier to adoption: existing middleware should be able to operate through existing standard ports and ‘behave itself’.

Findings test report

A test report shows that:

• It is possible to use existing middleware to set up publish/subscribe event distribution that is suitable for the BDI, Apache Pulsar for example.
• It is possible for that middleware to run over normal open ports in corporate firewalls in a civil manner, greatly reducing the barrier to deployment.
• The Apache Pulsar WebSocket extension was not yet sufficiently developed to handle tokens securely. This triggered a change request on the Apache Pulsar WebSocket extension, following which a WebSocket connection is closed when a token has expired. With this Pulsar Improvement Process, the modification becomes part of the official Apache Pulsar project.
• Apache Pulsar includes a component for archiving ‘pulses’ (trigger with event metadata), which is useful for archiving and traceability.