broker

A broker is someone or something that acts as an intermediary third party, managing transactions between two other entities.

In the real world, a broker is a business, like a real estate broker. In a computing context, a broker is a type of software, often a middleware program, like a message broker. In the case of businesses, a broker’s profit is based on relieving one or both parties of tasks related to conducting those transactions or of adding value to the transactions in some way.

Here are a few examples of various types of brokers:

Ad network: A company that acts as a broker between advertisers who want to purchase inventory and publishers who want to host ads.

Data broker: A business that collects personal information about consumers and sells that information to other organizations.

Cloud broker: Either a third-party individual or business that acts as an intermediary between the purchaser of a cloud computing service and the sellers of that service or a software application that facilitates the distribution of work between different cloud service providers. 

Connection broker: In desktop virtualization, a software program that allows the end-user to connect to an available desktop.