Odd-sounding it may be, but "enterprise mashups" are a
key medium-term trend in IT departments, Gartner will tell
delegates this week at its annual ITxpo in Cannes.
Behind the Californian jargon is a concept that will alter the
way business data is presented and how companies share data as part
of a business community.
David Cearley, a Gartner analyst specialising in emerging trends
and technologies, said mashups are already with us in the form of
websites that combine data from more than one source. Online maps
are now combining with online directories so that firms and
individuals can easily locate a business address, for example.
Speaking ahead of his presentation at the conference, Cearley
said the mashup approach has huge implications for business
applications. "If you look at it internally, this is a way to break
down the barriers between applications. An executive could combine
data from a salesforce application, marketing applications and
other external sources into a single portal or digital
dashboard.
"What you end up with is a more personalised, role-based
application that can be delivered inside or outside the
company."
Enterprise application mashups will rely on a range of
technologies that IT departments are already implementing,
including service oriented architectures, to split off application
functions and allow them to be published to other applications.
They will also draw on the representational state transfer
(Rest) approach to internet applications, a technology being used
by organisations such as the Science Photo Library to simplify web
development.
"Simply put, Rest describes the web as a full-blown application
architecture, not just a graphical user interface architecture or a
transport architecture," Cearley said.
In the future, businesses may want to allow their own
applications to be linked in this way with those from other
companies for the benefit of their business partners. For example,
manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors may want to put
together some of their inventory data and expose it to retailers to
enhance their customer service.
However, Cearley said that mashups are still at a nascent stage
and early examples are low risk. Security, performance, privacy and
data quality will all become part of the risk equation when
building application mashups, he said.
Such enterprise mashups will also have implications for the
status of the IT department, as previously internal applications
are exposed to external business partners.
"It will make IT even more critical to business operations," he
said.
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