June 15, 2008 — It does not take a rocket scientist to understand that mashups are moving from something conceptual and fun to productive and businesslike. In fact, developers are leveraging mashups to solve all sorts of business problems. The speed for production and the value of these little applications are compelling.

However, two factors must also be considered: the mixing and matching of resources found on the Web and within the enterprise, and the true composite application, such as the one defined in the world of SOA. Thus, mashups are indeed SOA, and SOA includes mashups.

Patterns emerge
While the concept of mashups is still developing, clearly the solution patterns are becoming more sophisticated as they now combine the up-and-coming concepts behind SOA. To that end, two types of mashups are surfacing: visual and non-visual...