The Fosstrak ALE Middleware comprises three separate modules:
All modules implement EPCglobal's ALE 1.1 specification.
Our implementation offers the features of the filtering and collection role as defined by EPCglobal's ALE standard. It currently supports the ALE Logical Reader API that is used to define logical readers through Logical Reader Specifications (LRSpec) and the ALE Reading API that is used to define the filtering and collection behavior using ECSpecs.
The standalone Java client provides a graphical user interface to define ECSpecs and LRSpecs on a particular filtering and collection server. It also allows users to subscribe and unsubscribe to reports generated by the filtering and collection server and specify the address where the reports should be sent to.
The web-based client is a Java web application (WAR) that provides the same functionality as the standalone client. It allows developers to use their web browser to define ECSpecs, Endpoints as well as LRSpecs and submit them to a filtering and collection server.
The filtering and collection server does not currently implement the ALE 1.1 specification in full. The main features of the current implementation are the Logical Reader API and the EventCycle. For a detailed overview, please refer to the table below.
| Feature | Described in ALE Specification 1.1 | Supported by Fosstrak ALE Middleware |
| ALE reading API ALE writing API ALE LogicalReader API Access Control API ECSpec ECSpec ECReports Event Cycles LRSpec LRProperty Tag Smoothing | Sect. 8 Sect. 9 Sect. 10 Sect. 11 Sect. 8.2 Sect. 8.2 Sect. 8.3 Sect. 5.2 Sect. 10.4 Sect. 10.5 Sect. 10.6 | yes no yes no yes yes yes yes yes yes no |