This talk aims to provide attendees with a basic understanding of middleware, its relationship with distributed systems, communication protocols, and the system structure of an embedded system. With these fundamentals in place, attendees will be introduced to a toolbox of design patterns that can be used to systematically design a message-based middleware that is tailored to the problems at hand. This talk will be a great opportunity for attendees to learn about the latest trends and best practices in middleware design and implementation.