If one embraces this ecosystem perspective, one can take a step back in one’s mind and model a complex system as a network of cooperating units of equal status rather than as a hierarchy, a ­system that is not subject to strict hierarchical control, but instead follows a set of rules for cooperation among the involved service components. This is where new forms of system designs which are discussed as mashups in the following come from.   

Mashups offer the simple and lean approach of the Web 2.0 philosophy

SOA and BPA are highly effective tools for the design of complex corporate applications. But they also require extensive expertise and experience in development. Typical features of a quality-assured development are a phase-oriented development model, the clear distribution of roles among business analysts, architects, coders, and testers, comprehensive requirement and change management, strict test and acceptance procedures, complete documentation, and dependable release and configuration control.   

But there is also a downside to high quality. The disadvantages to these “heavy metal” development processes are the small number of delivery cycles (releases) every year and a lack of ­flexibility and response speed.

Are there other paths to take which will evade these disadvantages? How can business processes be automated more flexibly, how can changes be implemented in a matter of days rather than months? How can the employees of a company be integrated in the sense of “empowerment” into the design of process automation?   

Web 2.0 points in a new direction: “mashups” are in this case a popular aid which is used to build new applications out of combinations of content and functions available on the Web. Content from the Web such as texts, data, pictures, or videos are recombined in new form as a collage. The mashups make use of application programming interfaces (APIs) which other Web applications make available. Google and Amazon are two ­examples of companies which provide well-documented APIs for search tasks. For example, providers of Web sites can use the API of Google Maps to integrate maps and satellite ­photos into their own Web sites. The API from Flickr or YouTube is often used as well to incorporate photos or videos into new applications. Many mashups still have the character of experiments while others are used commercially, such as when a hotel ­visualizes the directions for reaching the establishment on its Web site through the use of a mashup with a cartography provider.

Next page