Web 2.0 is not only a reality, unlike the so-called SOA 2.0, and is a real change in platform at its very essence. Web 2.0 raises real social issues such as information sharing, collaboration, and social networking. Can enterprises recognize this platform and realize its benefits? The web as a platform is producing a large amount of resources including access to Software-As-A-Service (SaaS) applications, like Saleforce.com, which provided greater value than their enterprise bound counterparts, service marketplaces, such as StrikeIron, and mash-able applications that can be mixed and matched with other Web 2.0 and enterprise applications to quickly solve business problems.
Just having access this type of resources available, for the price of a broad-band connection, is no guarantee that enterprises will be able to properly leverage it. It will take time before enterprises are equipped to leverage the emerging Web beyond the browser. The best way for enterprisesto prepare themselves is to design and develop first generation SOA with Web 2.0 in mind, in other words making enterprise systems “exposable” to external services or applications, or “able to consume” those same resources. to prepare themselves is to design and develop first generation SOA with Web 2.0 in mind, in other words making enterprise systems “exposable” to external services or applications, or “able to consume” those same resources. This will not be an easy undertaking, and the security and firewall issues will abound.
Most SOAs will have the side benefit of being able to leverage Web 2.0 technologies as resources, such as services, but enterprises must design for this in order to make their infrastructure most effective. This involves cataloging, testing, and governing services in other domains of ownership, attempting to mashup internal and external systems, and ensuring that security plans consider this notion. Enterprises that don’t plan for this will be stuck not seeing the new Web. Those enterprises will have huge strategic disadvantages in the upcoming years.
With the arrival of rich client and extensible interfaces such as AJAX, enterprises now have the ability to quickly develop mashups to solve specific business issues using standard dynamic interfaces that front services. Mashups are a powerful mechanism for taking existing applications and services, and creating something even more useful to the business.
Mashups seem to be falling into two categories: front-end and back-end.
Front-end mashups are the most common today as enterprises mash Google Earth with geospatial databases or a real time stock ticker with a portfolio manager. Enterprises can gain value by taking two different interfaces and creating something that is of more value than the two separate application, sort of like 2+2 = 5. These are the “glitz and glamour” aspect of SOA and mashups. Enterprises will so a ton of these in the very near future, if their not already.
Back-end mashups constitute the mashing up of multiple services to create composite applications, or integration points, to service a business process. A unique aspect here is that they are not likely to expose anything to a user interface. For example, mashing up a stream of names of persons of interest with a watch-list service, or mashing up a stream of suspects with a lexis nexis legal service. While front-end mashups are cool and useful, however back-end mashups will provide more value to enterprises as time passes.
So, if you are mashing up resources remember to consider both front-end and back-end, as well as how this all works in the context of an SOA, and how the enterprise works with the emerging web.
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