What does IBM Mashup Center Developer AMI help me with?
IBM Mashup Center is designed to provide an easy to use business mashup solution, supporting rapid assembly of situational applications from widgets and feeds - with the security and governance capabilities IT requires..
What’s the difference between WebSphere sMash and IBM Mashup Center?
IBM
WebSphere sMash provides a dynamic scripting environment for developers to build and
run dynamic Web-based applications as well as to enable mashups through the creation
of widgets for IBM Mashup Center. Once developers create widgets and assets in WebSphere sMash they can be managed through IBM Mashup Center’s catalog and used in mashups created by end users.
What is a mashup and how can it help businesses?
A “mashup” is a lightweight Web application created by combining information or capabilities from more than one existing source to deliver new functions & insights.
An enterprise mashup platform, like IBM Mashup Center, can help organizations to unlock
and transform enterprise, Web, personal and departmental information into consumable
or "mashable" assets, including information feeds and widgets. These assets can then
be dynamically assembled, at-the-glass, into new applications that address daily business challenges. With IBM Mashup Center, organizations can reduce their application backlog and improve productivity by empowering line of business, self-service application development.
What are typical types of mashup solutions that work well on AWS and what types do not?
As AWS is a cloud based offering, connectivity to backend or “in house” systems cannot
be guaranteed. Therefore, mashup solutions that are either wholly contained in EC2 or that
are well defined and performing Web-services would be a good fit for AWS. Examples include:
Aggregation on AWS and self-contained Mashups sites: Built with the IBM Mashup
Center mashing up databases, files and systems hosted on AWS or within the IBM Mashup Center AMI.
Aggregating robust Web services: Mashup solutions that aggregate robust internet
feeds and services including but not limited to: Salesforce.com or similar SaaS applications; Web services: StrikeIron, TDI Ameritrade, Xignite, Alexa. Programmable Web and external RSS feeds (e.g. CNN.com). The solutions’ operations will be reliant on both the uptime of these external services as well as the bandwidth between those services and the AWS servers. If the overall uptime and performance of the services is acceptable then this solution could work well in AWS.
Some systems are less suited to an AWS-based mashup solution and careful consideration and testing should be taken when considering AWS to deploy such solutions. Some examples:
Aggregating applications outside of EC2: If your mashup solution requires a highly available, high performance connectivity to backend services located outside the AWS environment (e.g. in house) then the overall performance and uptime could be at risk. In this situation it is probably worth looking at on premise solutions where bandwidth, performance and uptime can be better controlled/guaranteed.
Integration with external corporate user directories (e.g. LDAP): This is similar to the need to aggregate external applications, but user directory access is a global requirement across the entire mashup, raising the importance of a reliable, secure and fast connection between AWS and the external registry. This capability is not provided by default in the AMI, but several VPN-based solutions are documented in the AWS forums.
Is IBM Mashup Center restricted in any way?
Yes, please read the AWS Customer Agreement and relevant License Information for
complete details.
How do I size my AWS infrastructure requirements?
For the IBM Mashup Center Developer AMI the following instance types are applicable:
Small Instance and High-CPU Medium Instance.
