a computer or other communication network fig5 shows an embodiment of the middleware 500 as it relates to some external components shown as a block diagram an application 100 is coupled to the system via a secure https connection the application 100 and the middleware 500 communicate using a module in the middleware 500 called a service call responder 430 the service call responder 430 is adapted for receiving and transmitting communications to the application 100 these communications may be in an ordinary standard format or may be specially formulated in a proprietary format which both the middleware 500 and the application 100 support service request objects may be passed from the application 100 to the middleware 500 as packets of data accompanying or attached to communication traffic between the application 100 and the service call responder 430 it should be noted that in some embodiments the use of the https protocol avoids complications arising from the presence of fire walls as is known to those skilled in the art of data communication the application policy manager 432 is a software module that manages various aspects relating to applications 100 that use the functionality of the server 200 or middleware 500 the application policy manager 432 allows an application 100 itself to determine how digital certificates will be accepted from cas the application 100 can decide to accept all or.