Product review: WSO2 Mashup Server takes first steps

Mashups -- or composite applications -- promise the ability to easily create useful new applications from existing services and Web applications. By combining data from multiple sources across the Web, and from within the enterprise, mashups can help distill important information for people who would otherwise need to gather and distill it manually.

A mortgage underwriter verifying an applicant's income is a good example. Underwriters typically work with a long list of Web pages, accessing public data sources to create a montage of the applicant's financial situation. This is a perfect scenario for a mashup.

Composite applications in 2008 are in the "early adopter" phase, with companies exploring their uses and potential in the enterprise. There's no lack of entrants in the field; a quick search turned up at least 20 different mashup platforms, both commercial and open source. Products such as JackBe Presto, Nexaweb Enterprise Web 2.0 Suite, and Kapow's RoboSuite illustrate the range of approaches (click the links for InfoWorld's reviews). 

For pros only

WSO2's Mashup Server is aimed at Web developers seeking a complete environment for building, deploying, and administering composite applications. It's clear that the WSO2 Mashup Server design team gave some thought to what such developers would need to create mashups, and for those with an understanding of JavaScript, XML, and AJAX, this toolset makes developing mashups simple. Business users, who might be in the best position to create useful enterprise mashups, would be unlikely to master this tool, any more than you'd expect them to develop a Web application. This limitation might not be entirely relevant at this stage of the game, considering it will probably be several years before even the average corporate IT user is able to assemble useful mashups. By then, the point-and-click tools should have matured to the stage that writing code is not necessary.

[ The  line is blurring between the enterprise and the Web. See "Enterprise mashups" and "Enterprise mashups meet SOA." ]

WSO2 Mashup Server consists of a framework for use on both the client and server side of a mashup. On the server side, deploying a Web service can be as simple as writing the service in JavaScript and moving the file to the proper directory. All the necessary resources to use the service from a client are automatically generated, such as the WSDL and schema, along with a number of other useful artifacts. The server is based upon WSO2's WSAS (Web Services Application Server), widely tested for interoperability, so the services should be accessible from most any client.