Integrating system engineering software tools

System engineering projects typically involve the use of a variety of design, analysis, simulation, and management software tools that are home-grown or commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS). Very often, these applications are hosted on dissimilar computing platforms in a network environment. An application deployed on one platform may not be easily ported to another platform, and it usually cannot be readily accessed by software on the other platform. Enhancing the inter-operation among software applications or tools will greatly increase the effectiveness of the system engineering process. The middleware technology currently being developed by the computer industry promises to provide the needed software interface for integrating tools across a heterogeneous computer network. This paper discusses the experience of applying the middleware technology to software tools used in system engineering.