SaaS/DaaS: Data Sources Powering Mashups

SaaS (Software as a Service) are hosted on-demand browser-based applications.  Parallel to SaaS is something I’m calling DaaS (Data as a Service), a trend that is rapidly evolving.  DaaS combines elements of SaaS and SOA and it is the force behind on-line data mashups.  SaaS tends towards the visual, while DaaS focuses more on the non-visual.

While SaaS applications tend to be transplanted web cousins of long-familiar thick-client applications like CRM and ERP, DaaS are SOA-like data sources, acting like on-line databases, available to be consumed by both applications and other data sources. 

Toolkits for mashing up data services are proliferating, simplifying the process of merging and massaging on-line data sets.  Yahoo! Pipes, QEDWiki, and Kapow Technologies are three examples.  Swivel’s on-line data analytics with a social bent is another interesting twist on how the interest in on-line data is growing.

Yahoo!’s pipes allows RSS data feeds to be re-combined in unique ways.  A somewhat geeky interface allows designers to layout a data composite flow that connects and processes the XML of incoming RSS and Atom data feeds.  The name ‘Pipes’ comes from the UNIX command-line ability to funnel input and output data back and forth between processes.  Since being released over the last few weeks, Pipes has gotten considerable buzz — at one point it was 5th on Technorati’s list of top searches.  Tim O’Reilly is calling Pipes “a milestone in the history of the internet.”

IBM’s QEDWiki is a toolkit for creating simple mashups for use in browsers.  It’s smart, but it is currently only available in a controlled hosted environment by IBM.  It runs on a LAMP stack written in PHP5 and uses an MVC (Model-View-Controller) architecture and AJAX to allow designers to quickly layout web pages using widgets and data feeds. 

Kapow Technologies sells Mashup Server software.  The Kapow server product distinguishes between three kinds of mashups:

• Presentation-Level.  Reuses the web interface of an existing web app
• Logic-based.  Integrates functionality and data of a web-enabled app
• Data/Content-based.  Collects and serves data from any web data source

David Linthicum writes that SOA architects now have another criteria to consider during their design: mashups.  How are SOA services exposed for mashups any different than normal SOA services?  Maybe there is really no difference, but the issues of governance and security are coming front and center now in terms of importance.

DaaS is something of a sleeper hit in the world of Web 2.0 taking a backseat to headlines about AJAX, but expect to see the hype grow around mashable data services.