Business Mashups
In web development, a business mashup is a Web application that combines data or functionality from one or more sources into a single integrated application. The term Mashup implies easy, fast integration, frequently done by access to open APIs and data sources to produce results that were not the original reason for producing the raw source data. An example of a business mashup is an management dashboard.
Business Mashups are a key component of integrating business and data services, as Business Mashups technologies provide the ability to develop new integrated services quickly, to combine internal services with external or personalized information, and to make these services tangible to the business user through user-friendly Web browser interfaces.
Legal and commercial issues are often an underlooked aspect related Business Mashups. It should not be overlooked that APIs are typically subject to legal limitations. For example, there are sometimes restrictions on using an API with a device that is not a Web browser[1] or it is not possible to use that API to provide a commercial service. In addition, the API providers often do not provide any sort of warranty in case of failure to deliver the service. These aspects may limit the applicability of Business Mashups unless specific service level agreements are in place.
Architectural aspects of business mashups
Business mashups differ from consumer mashups in the level of integration with enterprise computing environments, security and access control features, and the sophistication of the programming tools (mashup editors) used.
Another difference between business mashups and consumer mashups is a strong emphasis on (SaaS) and [Service-oriented architecture|Service-oriented Architectures]] (SOA
After several years of standards development, mainstream businesses are starting to adopt Service-oriented Architectures (SOA) to integrate disparate data by making this data available as discrete Web services. Web services provide open, standardized protocols to provide a unified means of accessing information from a diverse set of platforms (operating systems, programming languages, applications). These Web services can be reused to provide completely new services and applications within and across organizations, providing business flexibilty.
Business mashup editors
Business mashup editors are available to help users create or edit mashups. Examples include (alphabetically):