AIIM Control Bex 20Huff_Enterprise Mashups

Mashups, and New Trends In

Enterprise Software







Brian “Bex” Huff

Chief Software Architect

Jan 2008

Agenda





 Intro to mashups



 Demos of mashups



 Technology behind mashups



 Limitations of mashups



 The future of mashups









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What the HECK is a Mashup?!?!





 It’s a Hybrid Web Application



 Reuse formatted data from existing sources



 Access and display data with dynamic JavaScript

• AJAX, DHTML





 Analogous to Portal Servers

• Portlets written in J2EE or .NET

• Mashups written with mostly JavaScript

• Mashup widgets work in both .NET and J2EE environments





 More of a design philosophy than a tool or a framework

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What’s the Mashup Design Philosophy?





1) Separate your information from its presentation



2) Upgrade your enterprise architecture for easy data access

1) Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA) with SOAP

2) Resource-Oriented Architectures (ROA) with ReST





3) Create an easy-to-use JavaScript API for data access

1) Access SOAP or ReST services with AJAX

2) Load RSS or other XML-formatted data

3) Keep it simple! Don’t break the web!





4) Tell people about your API



5) Step back, and see what happens!

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Examples of Mashups





 Housing Maps

• http://housingmaps.com

• JavaScript mashup of Google Maps and rental data from Craig’s List





 Chicago Crime

• http://chicagocrime.org

• JavaScript Mashup of Google Maps and Chicago crime statistics





 Google Flight Simulator

• http://www.isoma.net/games/goggles.html

• Flash mashup of Google Maps and an airplane video game





 Thousands of other Google Maps Mashups:

• http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/

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Housingmaps.com Mashup









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Chicagocrime.org Mashup









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Google Fight Simulator









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What’s the Value to Me?





 If data is easy to reuse; innovation is bound to follow

• No enterprise Java learning curve!

• JavaScript Widgets, instead of complex J2EE Portals





 Don't need enterprise programmers for enterprise products!

• Mashups run in user’s browser, not an app server

• Security, performance, uptime managed in your infrastructure

• Enterprise programmers focus on infrastructure

• Application developers need only know JavaScript





 Important piece of Enterprise 2.0

• Give your employees a “safe” place to test new apps

• Lower the barrier of entry for enterprise software

• Allow innovation to happen at all levels

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Enterprise Mashup Examples





 Map customer addresses, or company locations

• Visualize the geographic area your serve





 Mashup people with their search history

• Customer service / Sales knows what they are trying to find





 Mashup sales activity with sales forecasts

• Business activity monitoring, updated every few minutes

• Monitor it with a Flash dashboard

• Published data also useful for generating reports





 Any data you have can be displayed in a widget

• One line of JavaScript on a HTML page

• Much easier than integrating application servers!

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Technology Behind Mashups





 Back-End: data repositories

• Large enterprise applications: ERP, CRM, ECM

• Raw database tables





 Middle Tier: application server

• Securely connect to back end data repositories

• Single-sign-on strongly encouraged

• SOA / ROA interface

• Publish content statically in JSON or XML format

• Place dynamic content in a cache for optimal performance





 Front End: web browser widgets (JavaScript, Flash, Silverlight)

• Use custom API connector to Middle Tier

• AJAX, Remote Scripting, etc.

• JavaScript user interface library (YUI, MochiKit, Dojo, etc.)

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Sample Public Mashup Diagram





• Housing Maps downloads Craig’s List data

• Publishes static JavaScript on a schedule

• User requests HTML and JavaScript from Housing Maps

• Google Maps and user’s browser do all the work of rendering the page!









Google

Maps





Static

Craig’s HTML &

housing maps

List JavaScript



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Sample Enterprise Mashup Diagram





• User requests HTML from intranet page

• Page includes references to secured enterprise JavaScript resources

• User logs in to app server middle tier, downloads secure JavaScript

• Single sign-on makes this invisible to user

• Enterprise infrastructure handles performance and security for you!







ERP App

System Server A



Mashup server Static HTML





ECM App

System Server B

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Enterprise Mashup Checklist





 Google Maps is the gold standard

• Publicly available static resources: images, JavaScript

• Easy to use JavaScript API

• Also supports XML, KML, and JSON

• Uses Remote Scripting instead of AJAX for more flexibility

• Access restricted by an API license key

• Prevents overuse by inexperienced JavaScript developers





 Enterprise mashups need a bit more

• Single Sign On ensures secure access to private data

• Web caching between browser and application server

• Data caching between application server and back end

• Guidance for users who design mashups

• Suggested JavaScript / Flash toolkits



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Mashups Beyond Google Maps





 Freebase.com

• Like a Wiki, but with structured database content

• Run queries and draw results with pure JavaScript





 Salesforce.com – hosted CRM

• Mashups with proprietary APEX language

• Combined reports on salesforce data, and ultra-secure in-house data





 Mashup toolkits for any public web sites

• Google Mashup Editor: http://editor.googlemashups.com/

• Yahoo Pipes: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/

• Microsoft Popfly: http://www.popfly.ms/





 Not many off-the-shelf enterprise solutions yet

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Limitations of Enterprise Mashups





 Accessibility for the blind

• Text-to-speech readers don’t support JavaScript

• Have not been seriously updated since 1998

• Existing web standards that ban JavaScript are obtuse and outdated

• WAI, WCAG 1.0, WCAG 2.0, Section 508





 Accessibility solutions

• Avoid standards, use new tools, empower the handicapped!

• Web 2.0 can be much more empowering than Web 1.0

• Use Firevox and AxsJAX to add accessibility to AJAX and Mashups

• http://www.firevox.clcworld.net/

• http://google-axsjax.googlecode.com/

• Use mashups to add accessibility to non-accessible pages!







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Limitations of Enterprise Mashups, cont.





 Security

• Need single sign on (SSO) security for data and services

• Difficult to do SSO over the greater internet





 Performance

• Dynamic service requests slower than static XML files

• Poorly written JavaScript that makes too many AJAX requests





 Stability and Uptime

• Can you trust Google Maps to be up 24/7?

• What if a server outside your domain breaks?





 Content reuse problems

• Potential of data theft if information is too re-usable

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The Future of Mashups





 App servers used more to mashup-enable back end systems



 Service-Oriented Architectures more common

• Lend themselves very well to mashups

• As do Resource-Oriented Architectures

• Make Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) optional

• Keep the bar low for “hobbyists”





 New formats:

• JSON will surpass XML for data transfer

• ATOM will surpass RSS for syndication





 Accessibility standards will eventually catch up

• Good tools and ease of use are more important than “standards”

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The Future of Mashups, cont.





 Mashups empower users to find data in silos



 Enterprise Widgets replace portal servers

• AJAX and JavaScript replaces J2EE and .NET for some portals

• Other portals replaced with full web applications





 Freebase becomes vastly more popular

• Still in alpha release

• Unknown if it can scale to Wikipedia’s size





 Web based data mining, and data visualization tools

• JavaScript based rapid application development tools

• Adobe Flex and Microsoft Silverlight visualization engines



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Questions?







 My Company:

• http://bezzotech.com

• Oracle Enterprise Content Management solutions





 My Blog:

• http://bexhuff.com

• Technology, lifehacks, and all that good stuff…





 My Self:

• bex@bezzotech.com

• Brian “Bex” Huff







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