Friday, January 09, 2009

Enterprise Mashup Patterns

Enterprise Mashups: New Book Highlights the Patterns
"Although mashups started out in the consumer space, their success makes a migration into corporate IT environments inevitable. Firms exploring this new software development model may struggle at first to understand the importance of mashups from a corporate perspective. In the upcoming book, Mashup Patterns, author Michael Ogrinz provides a collection of use-case driven patterns intended to explain the value of enterprise mashups to both technical and non-technical readers."

The author talks about 34 patterns in 5 main categories depending on the circumstances where mashups are used in the enterprise.
  1. Harvest: Mine one or more resources for unique data
  2. Enhance: Extended the capabilities of existing resources
  3. Assemble: Remix existing data and interfaces to serve new purposes
  4. Manage: Leverage the investment in existing assets more effectively
  5. Testing: Verify the performance and reliability of applications

I skimmed through all 34 patterns listed in the article under above categories and was pleasantly surprised how all these patterns are supported by the WSO2 Mashup Server (Open Source, Apache Licensed). With version 1.5's introduction of a Gadget Dashboard and integration of OpenId and Cardspace even the Manage category is covered.

Interesting discovery.