Understanding Mashups, Applications, and Orchestrations

To understand and use Business Mashups, you have to understand mashups, applications, and orchestrations. Each of these concepts denotes containers or collection of elements, and each performs a specific function to help you effectively manage your projects.

Mashup-- A mashup can contain multiple applications and orchestrations, which emit mashup events that execute activities in other tools or applications. A mashup may also contain the Global Application, which contains core database elements, such as system auxiliary tables, and design elements that are not unique to a single mashup, such as JavaScripts.
Application--A collection of elements that work together to solve a business requirement, such as managing a team's work tasks or tracking customer support calls. Applications typically contain workflows, fields, forms, roles, projects, reports, and notifications. Once applications are deployed as part of a mashup, they can be configured for your runtime environment using Mashup Administrator. Applications can reference orchestrations.
Orchestration--Orchestrations define the interaction of systems and Web services. System-based operations, such as BPEL processes, can be arranged using Serena Mashup Composer into an orchestration workflow. Orchestration workflows can then be linked to mashup events and called by transitions in applications.

In essence, a mashup is a container for multiple applications and orchestrations. Storing multiple applications in a single mashup eases the process of creating and maintaining relationships between applications. For example, you may create relational fields between two applications, which means that these two applications are related and should be treated as a single unit. Using a mashup lets you be sure to deploy the two applications simultaneously.