What Web 2.0 Means to the Enterprise

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November 02, 2006

What Web 2.0 Means to the Enterprise

Web 2.0 is seen as a consumer-driven set of technologies, encompassing mashups such as Google Maps, Wikis, and social networks. However, Web 2.0 is coming to the enterprise soon, and will become a larger part of service-oriented architecture than we can currently imagine.

In a new ebizQ Webinar, David Mitchell Smith, VP at Gartner, and Christopher Crummey of IBM's software group provided their perspectives on what Web 2.0 means to the enterprise. (Archived Webinar is available to ebizQ members here.)

Smith illustrated the disruptive power of Web 2.0 with this statement: "A product that costs hundreds of millions of dollars and took 15 years to develop and refine and roll out has its guts copied by a four-person company, who make the same application available at the click of a mouse." Smith was referring to Microsoft Word 2007, and its new online competitor, Writely, now a part of Google.

Both Smith and Crummey pointed out that there is considerable convergence between Web 2.0 and service-oriented architecture taking place as well. For example, Smith said the concept of a "mashup" -- in which specific pieces of functionality are combined within a single presentation -- is the same as that of a composite application used in SOA. "We're starting to see a real blurring between the concept of composite applications and mashups," he pointed out.

Indeed, service-oriented business applications are similar to the Web 2.0 functionality offered through Websites. "The similarity is that we have programmatic access as well as other kinds of access to functionality that has previously been closed or locked up and only accessed in certain ways," Smith said.

However, there are also notable differences between Web 2.0 and SOA, Smith added. While SOA composite applications are tied to service level agreements that assure uptime, enterprise mashups from Web 2.0 applications typically don't carry SLAs. "In the Web 2.0 world, there are some things that have not been that well thought out yet," he cautions.

Another important differences is in the role of the business in technology deployments. Namely, while SOA needs to have business drivers before the technology is determined, Smith urges that Web 2.0 projects be undertaken with or without business input. "You should not wait to do the business requirements first," he said. "There's no reason to not start adopting some of these technologies right away. Some of these technologies are things you can take advantage of without going full force into changing how you do your business."

IBM's Crummey described how IBM has been fusing its own Web 2.0 approaches with its SOA. At the heart of the initiative is an enterprise portal that serves as a delivery platform. The portal "embeds Web 2.0 technology and weaves it into the fabric of the portal," he said. "We use portal to front-end our SOA architecture. SOA is very similar to portal. SOA is about reuse, SOA is about components, SOA is about reassembling components to add greater value and time to value. That's exactly what the portal is doing for us at IBM. It enables us to reassemble components in ways that weren't thought of before, and be able to provide value very quickly."

Smith points out that Web 2.0 in the enterprise will be surfaced as a "Web platform," or a virtual abstraction of an underlying infrastructure. "It's not a standalone platform, something you buy and stick in the box in the back room," he said. "It is virtual. It is separated often by a network, typically the Internet. It can be hosted, can be distributed and usually is. It's not just a client platform or a server platform, but a distributed one."

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