Mashup FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions - .Net
- Can these feeds that are aggregated from websites be used as a source to downstream mashups?
- What web part in Sharepoint is used to access the mashlet? Also does the SP page update real time as and when the mashlet is refreshed with updated data?
- Can you only pull live data in via XLS files, or from SOA, JDBC, API, etc. and if you can, how?
- What is running in the Client Browser? Is there a local executable that gets deployed to the client PC?
- Process was mentioned; are there flow objects in the wire tool for workflow type conditions between data steps?
- Are there any known firewall issues when pulling data from a web scenario, as well as internal?
- Would like to see it listening to events via JMS.
- How do you handle EMML versioning?
- JSR-168 is nice, but it doesn't help me as an ASP.NET developer. Is there support for displaying mashlets in ASP.NET apps?
- Can services be prepared from pretty much any data source including fixed length text files?
- Can you show database integration?
- What is the deliverable to the client? A mashup? Mashlet? I'm trying to understand how the application dev process changes in a mashup architecture.
- Can you please review what the outcome are of the mashup? RSS / GRID / CHART anything else? .. HTML?
- Is a Visual Studio plugin also available?
- How the Mashups are being handled for different devices display capacity (PC, iPhone, Blackberries, etc)?
- Can you comment on the differences between mashups as the means to aggregate data using standard to present in different consumption channels vs. using mashups to invoke services to perform functions/business processes that execute a backend application task (if that's even relevant for mashups)?
- Can widgets only be viewed on web browsers or is there support for programmatically accessing widget data from .NET or Java?
- Could you try and differentiate the mashups from traditional portlets?
- How do you assess the accuracy or reliability of the source data. How do you know you aren't being fed false data? What ESB security are you using.
- In the examples on competitive analysis, were APIs used to get data from different sources or was data obtained via HTTP and then parsed? I'm guessing a lot of retail sites don't necessarily provide APIs to access their price data.
- Say we have a legacy app that is written in VB code that wraps multiple web browsers. The web browsers actually call different java ear files; plus the VB code invokes java web services via SOAP. Could we "rewrite" this app as mashlets using the basic underlying java services & publish the "package" to a browser? Or basically simplify this legacy app plus make it customizable by adding new mashups?
- The value (and potential risk) of disparate information sources may be larger than the sum of the parts. (your competitive analysis pattern) Are there any design patterns (or tools) for service providers to understand how their information is being used (in perhaps anticipated ways).
- What are the best practices to mitigate website saturation if one or several mashups are hitting the same source website?
- What about how reliable an external resource can be if it's not under your control? What if Google suddenly changes their api or interface or eliminates it?
- What is the basis for your statement that "anything on the web is free game" -- many websites have restrictions on use that you must agree to before proceeding (for example, before tracking a package on UPS.com)?
- How does your tool harvest data from Flash/Flex apps on web sites?
- Some “mashups” have ability to support some business logic (eg: scripting languages)… are these considered mashups?
- We cant use XML, a programming language that originated on the internet to give the information metadata, and then use RSS and other languages to stream the data via syndication into one data aggregator.
- But the developer is still responsible for visual formatting so it fits different platforms (web, wireless devices etc) - right?
- Are enterprise Mashups portable to different web/application/mashup servers?
- Do you have samples of public administrations having applied mashups technologies on their websites/portals? (e.g. providing services to their citizens)
- Does Presto integrate into other portal platoforms, e.g. Webcenter?
- Say we have a legacy app that is written in VB code that wraps multiple web browsers. The web browsers actually call different java ear files; plus the VB code invokes java web services via SOAP. Could we "rewrite" this app as mashlets using the basic underlying java services and publish the "package" to a browser? Or basically simplify this legacy app plus make it customizable by adding new mashups?
- Is Mashup driven by AJAX?
- Many of these websites that are data sources are Ajax-based, hence pages created on the fly. Can Mashup tools harness Ajax based websites as well?
- There are some benefits to portals e.g. governance. Do you see portals as a way to deliver mashups?
- How does this compare in construct and operation to the Portal/Portlet style of web page composition.
- Is it required to compile the mashup separately for its deployment into .Net and J2EE containers? Does it require separate code base?
- Are you using .NET FRAMEWORK 3.5 with AJAX?
- Can we mashup two different databases...like SQLServer and Siebel ? I mean is it dependent on a particular technology?
- Can Presto create mashups with unstructured data (i.e. word doc checked into a SharePoint site)?
- What is the secret behind the mashlet being able to run in J2EE and .Net containers e.g. BEA Portal and SharePoint portal?
- How are mashups different from dashboards that have been around for a while?
- Our firm is not going to go out and scrape info from the web. How about an example where internally we can mashup mainframe data, existing java webservice calls via SOAP, and data from an excel spreadsheet! Is this possible with the mashup platform?
- Mashups seem well suited for information centric / lightweight BI applications, but how do these solutions evolve over time or provide enterprise capabilities for inclusion of more complex business logic, or support for business processes, rules, event processing, etc.
- I don't understand the BI, we know that excel is THE solution used by the business users to do their job. I have difficulties to see mashups helping in any way?!?
