Networked Embedded System Applications Design Driven by an Abstract Middleware Environment ∗

The extreme heterogeneity of networked embedded plat-forms makes both design and reuse of applications really hard. These facts decrease portability. A middleware is the software layer that allows to abstract the actual char-acteristics of each embedded platform. Using a middle-ware decreases the difficulty in designing applications, but programming for different middlewares is still a barrier to portability. This paper presents a design methodology based on an abstract middleware environment that allows to abstract even the services provided. This is gained by allowing the designer to smoothly move across different de-sign paradigms. As a proof, the paper shows how to mix and exchange applications between tuple-space and message-oriented based middleware environments.