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by Alan Savoy on Dec 19, 2007 - 10:13 AM read 628 times
 

Will a mashup tool be offered as part of the BSG Platform?

 If so, will users be able to post mashup configurations to conversations for discussion?

 The situation I am envisioning is a specifically configured mashup that is used to support a recommendation or decision.  The conversation could surround it with the various view points, allowing all the participants to see the same mashup.

 I am new to this technology.  Let me know if any of this is inconsistent.

  • Conv Brittain
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    by Brittain on Dec 19, 2007 - 11:15 AM read 96 times
     

    Can you give me an example of other "mashup tools"?

    However, speaking generically, we intend the BSG Platform to be (a) an open system and (b) an extensible system at both the UI and services layers.  Therefore, what you're describing is certainly not unheard of.

    On the other hand, it's important to not confuse the e.laborate application with the BSG Platform.  e.laborate supports a certain number of communication styles (i.e. how people interact: e.g. conversation threads, instant messages, focus groups, etc) and protocols (i.e. how the interaction is transmitted between people: e.g. web entry, SMS, mobile devices, e-mail, etc.).  What you describe sounds like it may imply a new e.laborate style.  In which case, that feature would need to be designed and built.

    Makes


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    • Conv Alan Savoy
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      by Alan Savoy on Dec 19, 2007 - 02:51 PM read 115 times
       

      You make a good point; I need to be careful with the terminology to make this clear.  The more correct form of my earlier question would be: Will BSG be providing an enterprise mashup tool as part of the SaaS offering, overseen by the Apps team, and integrated with the other SaaS offerings?  (One of the menu items, to borrow a term from Steve's presentation.)

      I asked Tony Gonzalez for a list of useful mashup tools the list he provided at that time was:

      http://www.jackbe.com/

      http://www.kapowtech.com/

      http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/

      Where JackBe and Kapow are the two enterprise mashup tools.  I have also seen IBM Shareable Code discussed in conversations:

      http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/isc/

      From what I have seen in JackBe's Presto introduction, that tool seems to be like what I had in mind.

      I could see one of our clients using an enterprise mashup to construct a particular view of data and sending a link (entry point) back to a conversation in e.laborate to discuss the findings in the mashup. 

      My goal may be easiest to understand in the context of a hypothetical example.  In this example we have an airline as a client who needs to analyze the effects of various fuel loading configurations.  We would like to do this through Simulation on Demand.

      Assuming we have a mashup tool available, this could be implemented as two services.  One would be a mashlet (GUI component) that is fed a map reference and flight data.  It would render the flights and allow the user to view the system from various perspectives.  The second would be a transformation which would be fed flight data and some parameters and produce modeled flight data altered by the parameters.

      The client could then use these services in a mashup.  So if they wanted to compare the flights on last Tuesday with what Tuesday would have been like with extra fuel loading, they could build a mashup to do that.  To see what the unaltered data looked like, they could map their company's flight data into the mashlet directly.  Then they could route that same flight data through the model service and map the output into another instance of the mashlet.  These two GUIs could be synchronized and presented on the same screen.

      Now we have a standard visualizer mashlet for any airline client that can be reused.  In additon, if we have other visualizers available, the could map the data into those as well to dynamically create a new view of the same data.

      If the results of last Tuesday with the modified parameters are interesting enough, they could link it into e.laborate and allow their coworkers to comment on the findings or run their own mashups to further investigate.

      Does this make sense and sound reasonable?

      • Conv Susan Scrupski  - Amie  http://twitpic.com/nh3m
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        by Susan Scrupski on Dec 19, 2007 - 04:47 PM read 106 times
         
        There is some useful information on the SocialText wiki on mashups.  I will send you an invite if you want to check it out.  I attended mashup camp this summer and brought back some good resource material. 

        mashups
      • Conv Brittain
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        by Brittain on Jan 04, 2008 - 02:07 PM read 171 times
         

        A few points of reply:

        • As I mentioned earlier, Apps isn't currently conceiving of providing a similar tool.  Interestingly though, we will provide tools that make building BSG Platform Apps easier.  Let's contrast this with the IBM solution above:
          • In the IBM solution, I use their builder to define and generate a full RubyOnRails application.  Our offering is not this generic.
          • In the JackBe solution, I add all my services to my palette, then go about wiring them together.  Lastly, I publish/deploy them to some production environment.  Our offering is not this generic either.  Neither is it this heavyweight.
          • In our solution, you start a generic RubyOnRails application (or Java or Wavemaker, etc) and then install whichever BSG Platform plugins you need.  For example, need to have an application login?  Install service_user_client and magically you've SSO and shared profiles.  Need to store files?  Install service_storage_client.  Etc, etc.
        • Having said this, we haven't ruled out the applicability of mashup tools, but we have set their priority.  Every mashup builder requires compatible services and widgets for data serving and data rendering.  In the SimOD space, we need to build these first.  If, when building our services, we follow the BSG Platform Reference Architecture (which admittedly isn't broadly communicated yet), our new services should work with the mashup tool in the ways you've described.

        So in a nutshell, I'd suggest we not get the cart before the horse.  Let's design and build our SimOD services and widgets.  The applicability and value of the mashup tools will then be self evident.

        One last, important point:  I'm not sure I see the product vision we're painting here? A few significant questions arise:

        • Why would "the client" want to do this?  Everything I've seen indicates they're interested in solutions, not recombinant technology.  On the other hand, perhaps delivery or a sim modeler could use them.
        • What user context do these mashups live in?  Are they on a Hub?  A custom app?  A simulation creation app?  An internal portal?
        • Once I've chosen a user context, then what's the relationship of that user context with the mashup tool?

        Again, to summarize, if BSG builds an "application" that's part-build-a-simulation-process/part-Hub then what's the role of the mashup tool?  It's value is in the application already, isn't it?

        Comments welcome.  As an fyi, I'll be sending a larger reply to the "SimOD and The Platform" e-mail thread that went around circa Dec 27.


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