Misconceptions are dangerous. Like zombies in a bad horror flick, they take on a life of their own as they spread through a community. And they have an annoying tendency to persist.
When the "Enterprise Mashups" term was coined circa 2007, some pundits quickly called them a poorly-aimed marketing ploy to rebrand some older technologies that had less than stellar reputations. Others saw it as a feeble attempt to steal the cachet of the cool new "consumer mashups" that showed apartments for rent in Chicago or LA. Unfortunately, because of these early knee-jerk reactions, enterprise mashups suffered some early but persistent misconceptions.
I think it's time to officially fight back against the zombies, so here are my top six picks for most common misconceptions about enterprise mashups. Remember, these are simply the opinions of one zombie-hunter, albeit a rather experienced one:
✦ Misconception #1: Enterprise Mashups are browser based.
Even though browsers are good at creating stunning, interactive Web pages and Web applications, they are not efficient at processing and combining significant amounts of data. This is a job that rightly belongs to the servers. The reality is enterprise mashups are best (i.e. fastest, safest, easiest to govern) executed on a server.
✦ Misconception #2: Enterprise Mashups are 'data on a map'.
Because the earliest consumer mashups were XML data on a Google Map, many thought that a 'mashup' was synonymous with 'map'. In my experience, most enterprise mashups aren't maps but charts, tables or other decision-support style formats.
✦ Misconception #3: Enterprise Mashups don't really require security and governance.
I once heard a software vendor executive on an enterprise software panel say; "Don't worry about security and governance -- that stifles innovation. Let security happen later." (You could hear the audience gasp in anticipation of the other panelist's response which was, in effect, "I don't care what it stifles, without security and governance it ain't livin' in my data center.") In fact, security/governance are the very essence of what makes a mashup into an enterprise mashup. They must be as safe as any application behind the firewall or they are nothing more than a science project.
✦ Misconception #4: Enterprise Mashups are 'throw away'.
I admit to being one of the perpetuators of this pithy idea a few years back but I've come to the conclusion that thinking of a mashup as 'throw away' is a bad idea because it is short-sighted. I find most people hear 'throw away' and think 'disposable' or single-use. But mashups can be quite the opposite of disposable, as they are easily changed for reuse in different situations and can be used as the building blocks of subsequent mashups. That can make a mashup more valuable than any static, one-trick-pony application.
✦ Misconception #5: Integration and Enterprise Mashups are the same thing.
There were some, particularly those working hard on SOA efforts, that said, enterprise mashups "sound like an ESB" or "are just more integration middleware." While I agree with Anthony Bradley at Gartner that some organizations are using enterprise mashups 'to clear out their application integration backlog more quickly and at less cost,' when in fact SOA-driven integration efforts and enterprise mashups complement each other well. And I'd say that I still see user-driven, user-facing decision-support and situational awareness solutions as the predominant enterprise mashup applications.
✦ Misconception #6: Enterprise Mashups are completely user-created, without IT.
Every few years some software trend blasts onto the scene claiming it will "put an end to traditional software development." Due to some early marketing (from a large software vendor that shall remain nameless), this was one of the qualities associated with enterprise mashups. But Enterprise Mashups access data inside the data center and IT owns the datacenter; as a result, IT is the one who must integrate the enterprise mashup platform into their organization's identity management, security and governance mechanisms. In effect, they build the expressway on which your mashups run smoothly.
Today, I think most would agree that Enterprise Mashups have a well-earned reputation as a serious enterprise technology. Both business and IT are welcoming enterprise mashups into their organization as a way to address their respective real-time decision-support and integration backlogs.
No zombies were hurt in the production of this blog.
I love that picture - what a common misconception! lol