Kapow beefs up mashup server
AJAX and RSS added to enhance offering
By Paul Krill, Infoworld | Published: 08:16, 06 November 2008
Kapow Technologies has beefed up its mashup server technology by adding enterprise management backing and enhanced RSS and AJAX capabilities.
The Kapow Mashup Server is for building data feeds for a front-end mashup application. Functioning with such mashup builders as Oracle WebCenter or IBM Mashup Center, Kapow Mashup Server version 6.5 provides back-end services for mashups including applications like stock and pricing research systems.
"What our product does is [create] data and feeds and services around anything you can browse," Stefan Andreasen, CTO and co-founder of Kapow, said. Pulling data from multiple sources, the server service-enables the web and "turns the web into a database," he said. Featured is a visual development tool called RoboMaker to turn data into a consumable feed or service, and RoboServer, which serves as the mashup server software.
With version 6.5, the company is offering its RoboServer Management APIs, enabling users to manage their farm of RoboServers via management tools, such as HP OpenView or IBM Tivoli. The API enables development of sophisticated scheduling systems for load-balancing of mashups.
RSS extensions in the product enable tailoring of RSS feeds for a specific business purpose, such as a feed with media information. "It's a huge improvement for the customers," Andreasen said.
Kapow has boosted support for complex AJAX libraries, such as Prototype and jQuery. This has been done in response to the number of dynamic JavaScript and AJAX-powered websites, which present issues with data extraction, according to Kapow.
Version 6.5 also supports the latest releases of Oracle's WebCenter and Portal products.
In addition to RSS, Kapow Mashup Server supports standards such as REST, ATOM, SOAP, JSON and WSDL. Data feeds leveraging these standards can be input into Mashup Server or furnished to a mashup.
