Introducing the Presto Enterprise Mashup Platform

So what is an enterprise mashup platform? The simplest definition is a platform that virtualizes or directly hosts sources of information or data and makes them easily accessible and "mashable" to users and client applications while providing the governance necessary for enterprise resources. Mashup platforms simplify integration and reuse and enable easy mashup creation and consumption for both internal and external information.

A mashup platform helps to address many common problems for enterprises, users and IT groups struggling to support an ever-widening set of information needs, such as:

Quick and easy access to information from many different sources, both within the enterprise and external sources. Information is frequently in many different formats or in applications that don’t "share" easily.

Integration frequently is just not simple. Making the information accessible in RIAs or other applications takes a wide variety of expertise and significant time to connect information sources, handle the variety of responses and present the information.

Information needs to be delivered "everywhere" users go and must be easily, but appropriately shared. The ’rules’ for sharing tend to evolve as projects progress.

User information requirements are unpredictable, changing on short notice and frequently short-lived. To enable collaboration and innovation, users need to discover information sources, ’play’ with it, combine it and share the results.

This transient, quickly changing model requires an agile, flexible solution that allows users to determine some requirements and outcomes as they work.

Information still has to be secure. User access to enterprise information cannot simply be a free-for-all. As users or developers create new information sources, access controls must also evolve seamlessly.

Not every information need can be defined by business users – no matter how simple it seems. So developers need robust solutions that can handle a rich set of problems and support the development process. Solutions must also be simple enough to allow developers to meet business time frames.