Mashup for business applications

If there is an appropriate control policy, mashups can create new and effective application layers in an enterprise environment.

Mashups are becoming popular with the Web 2.0 trend. Often web services use mashups to combine maps with a variety of data from multiple sources on the web. Over the past year, we've seen many popular emerging sites, like Zillow.com predict real estate prices or AuctionMapper showing eBay search results on a map to help locate the nearest sellers. .

But mashups can do more than annotated maps for regular websites. This technique can also be applied to business applications for business operations. Because mashups are based on existing technical platforms - JavaScript, XML and DHTML, combined with high-speed Internet connection to support rich graphical interfaces and features - there is no need for a lot of investment. Mashups are beginning to be seriously considered as solutions to integration problems, which are often a burden before.

This flexible integration approach has been applied in the past, as e-commerce sites combine UPS or FedEx monitoring data (freight services) with order information to provide screens. Summary of order status. In an enterprise environment, providers of portal solutions such as IBM and Plumtree have long provided graphical tools to enable easy integration of data sources, creating applications. Simple customizable web application.

" The difference is that there are now many API libraries built on common standards that are easy to use, " says Giovanni Gallucci, president of Kinetic Results, a company specializing in search engine optimization and web analytics. .

Kinetic Results has created mashups using web traffic data and other analytical data to create visual reports provided to customers. Or as Zip Realty uses mashups to integrate customer data from the CRM system into email sent to agents. List of companies that are using mashups is much .

Try to get back

For years, web applications have been widely penetrated in the enterprise environment, so integrating multiple data sources behind the firewall is nothing new. However, the application of AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is changing the landscape. " The good thing is that you have a platform that is everywhere and you can easily integrate components, " said Ross Dargahi, co-founder and vice president of technology at Zimbra, which develops plus tools. email and AJAX-based email.

Moreover, as more businesses and service providers adopt web technologies, more data will be available in the form of XML. " In the past, half of the workload was looking at how to bind components together. With XML and the technologies that came with it, that job became simple ," Gallucci said.

Aaron Tavistock, the chief architect of Zip Realty, said that Google's launch of Google Map API created an important turning point. Google has contributed a lot to the idea of ​​mashup by providing free API libraries for developers. There has never been such an openness before.

The rich graphical interface is also an attractive element, according to Zimbra's Dargahi. In the past, web applications were often very compact and people in the industry liked them because they were easy to deploy. But users are not very sympathetic to web applications because they are rude and have fewer features than desktop applications. AJAX can help bring rich interfaces to compact web applications. But it is more important to hide behind the interface that catches the eyes of the user - the information obtained through the API.

Attractive SOA

With the widespread adoption of web standards, access to information has become much easier, according to Dan Gisolfi, an IBM architect who specializes in mashups for business customers. More sophisticated and newer technologies of SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) and web services (Web Service) such as SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), WSDL (Web Service Description Language) and REST (Representational State Transfer) can also contribute to creating mashups.

In a sense, mashup is the simplest form of an SOA-based application. " Mashups are very relevant to service-oriented business concepts ," said Shane Pearson, vice president of marketing at BEA Systems, which specializes in web services solutions, even Jason Bloomberg, the company's analyst. consultancy ZapThink also commented: "mashup is the most attractive point of SOA".

Mashups may already be present around you but with a different name. For example, Pratt & Whitmey developed the first mashups four years ago, using the term "info center" for general applications using technologies that are currently used for mashups. Mashups also apply the same principles and standard communication to discrete objects, which are the natural development steps of web services first and then SOA.

" Mashup creates SOA demand ," said IBM's Gisolfi. If your company does not pursue an SOA strategy, this may change after several sample mashup applications. When managers see websites that integrate easily and quickly the data and features are often scattered in many applications, this benefit is convincing itself.

Resource management

Application performance may be attractive, but creating mashups is quite easy to have a certain level of risk. Typically, skills require no more JavaScript programming and more and more tools to easily develop such as Tibco General Interface Builder and Backbase. " That's why you should have a mashup control policy ," said Joe Kraus, CEO of JotSpot.

ZapThink's Bloomberg also agrees with the idea. " Like it or not, the manager must finally let the staff assemble the composite application, without the control, the disaster will happen ."

Another problem is the safety of data from outside to the company. FedEx and Google may be reliable, but you should be careful with other companies. More and more companies offer API libraries (XML) on the web. Gallucci of Kinetic Results believes that businesses with trusted partnerships can use mashup solutions to exchange information and link processes better. For example, the general bulletin board for the entire product supply chain uses data sources from participating companies.

Management is also necessary for internal data sources to ensure that confidential information is not leaked. For example, the business department has the right to make a central screen mashup that monitors the production situation, but the customer service agent does not. Bloomberg argues that mashup development tools need to be designed to ensure use and access policies, enabling IT departments to set policies and technically unpopular employees who can assemble mashups according to their roles. they.

According to Bloomberg, mashup management is not just control policies, it has a larger goal of building appropriate services so users can assemble mashups easily.

Not reliable enough

Because mashups are easier to create than many traditional applications, they may not be carefully controlled for security, JotSpot's Kraus warns. Many of these applications are based on JavaScript, which has many loopholes. Comfortable installation of external mashup components is a threat because you don't know what tasks it does inside.

Although the IT department can understand security issues related to JavaScript or other underlying technologies of mashups, it is not yet possible to know the new risks thoroughly. Gisolfi of IBM admitted: " We have not grasped the security issues of mashups, so there is no best security solution for mashups ."

Although attractive for fast and compact applications, mashups also have limitations. According to Stefan Andreasen, technical director of Kapow Technologies, " mashups are meaningful for 80% of normal IT processes. But no company uses models like mashups for important information ." So the IT department must pay attention to the important business areas that mashups are allowed to penetrate.

RULES FOR MASHUP

Some reference rules can help avoid chaotic mashups .
• Determine which internal information can be used and for what purpose, so confidential data will not leak through mashups.
• Use licensed external data sources to avoid unwanted advertisements; With free sources, you need to know the terms of use agreement.
• Create directory of XML and RSS internal data sources to provide mashup developers in the IT department as well as other business departments.
• Use mashups as integrated options for common tasks such as order status monitoring with external partners.
• The mashup tools are still in development stage, find the best tool to meet your current needs, but continue to consider new tools.
• Develop and enforce compliance with mashup policies, but don't be too rigid, otherwise you will eliminate the purpose of flexible development.

Nguyen Thanh