A Policy Based Event Management Middleware for Implementing RFID Applications

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has become a popular identification technology in a number of application areas such as supply chain management. A dedicated middleware solution is required to achieve the maximum benefits of RFID technology. The middleware components serve to abstract the communication between the middleware and the different types of sensing devices on one hand, and the middleware and backend applications on the other hand. FlexRFID is a simple and smart RFID middleware which provides device management and monitoring, data processing, filtering, and aggregation, rapid application development, as well as a policy based business rules layer which helps applying rules for accessing and configuring the services provided by the middleware. This layer serves to process some business intelligence rules locally so that the host system is offloaded from those mundane tasks. The paper shows that FlexRFID is a highly scalable and easily deployable middleware in the heterogeneous sites based on different standards and consisting of different hardware. Apart from these, FlexRFID incorporates the mechanisms for supervision, testing, and control of its components, plus handles the security and privacy issues that inhibit the adoption of RFID technology by applying the privacy policies in the business rules layer. FlexRFID middleware is controlling the data flows in and out as well as locally controlling some intelligence.