Where
Is XML Heading?
Someone once said that XML is
better than sliced bread—it doesn’t mold. With all this XML hubbub, people tend
to forget that XML isn’t an application. It’s not a program-ming language. It’s
not the answer to world peace and starvation. It’s not even a break-fast
cereal. XML is simply a document format that has characteristics that make it
very well suited to sending structured information containing metadata that is
easily validated.
However, with a standard
language that has all the capabilities of XML, tremendous advancements can be
made in areas dealing with the representation, storage, and exchange of
information. In particular, XML is making it easier to conduct e-business and
e-commerce, manage online content, work with distributed applications,
communi-cate, and otherwise provide value.
E-Business
and E-Commerce
In the past few years, the
Internet and the Web have revolutionized the way we commu-nicate. As part of
this revolution, the way in which we do business has likewise been rad-ically
altered. We can finally be liberated from paper-based processes and be
empowered to conduct business and improve our customer support. We have moved
from “tradi-tional” business to “e-business,” and XML is helping every step of
the way.
E-commerce is not a concept
that was invented with the Web. Rather, it has been around as long as there
have been electronic means for exchanging commercial transactions. EDI has been
around since the late 1960s and has been in use to exchange supply, ship-ping,
and purchase information. However, the technology is rather arcane, relatively
expensive, and cumbersome to implement. The promise of being able to exchange
vital business information using open protocols such as XML and the Internet
have tickled more than one idle mind.
It is widely understood that e-business, as a term, refers to a
collection of business con-cepts and processes that are enabled by a variety of
electronic or online solutions. In gen-eral, e-business often refers to the practice of using
electronically-enabled processes to manage and run portions of a company’s
business practices, or managing its overall busi-ness approach using an
electronic or online mentality. Particular e-business practices include
delivering information to customers via the Internet, implementing customer
relationship management systems, and connecting branches together utilizing
electroni-cally distributed methods.
Although overlapping somewhat
with the definition of e-business, e-commerce
generally refers to the ability to perform a particular transaction with a
customer in an electronic or online format. E-commerce is usually much smaller
in scope and focused than overall e-business and usually implies a direct
transaction between two parties. To make the dis-tinction with e-business
clear, buying a book online is considered an e-commerce transaction, whereas
enabling the fulfillment and delivery of that book using electronic methods is
considered e-business.
One of the main uses of XML
in e-business is the representation of the various business transactions that
occur on a daily basis between partners in a trading process. This includes
purchase orders, invoices, shipping, bills of lading, and warehousing
informa-tion. Because these transactions represent billions, if not trillions,
of dollars on a daily basis, it’s no wonder that the first target of many XML
standards-setting bodies is to specify these very transactions.
In addition to the actual
transactions themselves, XML is helping to standardize the process by which
these messages are exchanged among trading partners. One of the biggest values
that EDI brought to implementing companies was that in addition to get-ting a
file format, you also got a message-transport mechanism. In order for XML to
truly be enabled for e-business, it also needs a means for guaranteeing that
messages reach their final destination in the order and quantity necessary. As
such, business-ori-ented standards groups have been creating the means for
transporting, routing, and pack-aging XML messages for consumption in business
processes.
One of the major steps in any
e-business process is payment for services rendered or goods sold. Even in this
area, XML is making a major impact. XML has been used to send payment
information of all types, including credit cards, cash, vouchers, barter
exchanges, and electronic funds transfers. Of course, security remains one of
the biggest concerns when it comes to sending payment information, and in this
area too, XML is making waves. XML has been used for security specifications of
all sorts, ranging from encryption and authorization to privacy.
Content
Management
The proliferation of
computing power and the means to connect these machines has resulted in an
explosion of data. All of a sudden, any application or document can instantly
be shared with others. This has led to the concept that all information or data
can be considered “content” that can be accessible and integrated with other
systems. XML is being used to enable all forms of content management and
application integration.
In particular, content that
formerly was locked into proprietary file formats has been encoded with a
variety of XML-based formats. XML is now enabling this content to be searched,
located, and integrated with applications. “Legacy” systems, such as Customer
Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), accounting,
finance, Human Resources (HR), and other systems, are now communicating with
each other using XML as the “lingua franca” of exchange. In addition, documents
that have been sitting in various file repositories are being marked up and
made available to users, both internal and external, through the Web.
XML is not only being used to
mark up and integrate with existing content but also to assist in its creation
and management. A variety of new technologies based on XML are being used to
help in authoring, versioning, posting, and maintenance of content of all
sorts. These new XML formats allow many types of users to work with content in
an open, nonproprietary manner. As well as giving users the ability to control
how their con-tent is viewed, XML is enabling developers to “syndicate” content
by distributing it to subscribers of all types. This means that a single source
of data can be placed on multi-ple Web servers and destinations, without having
to key in the data multiple times. Truly, XML has liberated data to serve its
function of conveying information.
Web
Services and Distributed Computing
XML even aims to solve some
of the long-standing challenges in getting computer sys-tems to interact with
each other on a programmatic level. Distributed
computing (the ability to distribute processing responsibilities and
functions among machines on a local or wide area network) has long faced
challenges in the way that programming functional-ity encapsulated within
“objects” is exchanged. Over the past few decades, many differ-ent approaches
have been attempted at getting systems of even the same operating system type
to be able to efficiently exchange programming functionality. This ability to
call remote computing functionality, known as remote procedure calls (RPCs) or distrib-uted computing, has been attempted through technologies
such as the Component Object Model
(COM) and CORBA. However, each of these technologies has its supporters from
different, proprietary implementation camps. COM is supported mainly by the
Microsoft camp, whereas CORBA is supported by competing vendors. XML aims to
put this divi-siveness to rest by specifying a platform-neutral approach by
which objects and program-matic functionality can be operated on a global,
distributed basis.
This ability to access
computing functionality through XML and Web technologies is becoming known as Web Services and will no doubt play a
major role in the next few years. Backed by such industry notables as IBM,
Microsoft, Sun, and Oracle, Web Services are poised to change the way computing
is accomplished on a distributed, open basis. XML is being used to define and
transport application functionality as well as allow users a means to register
and locate these Web Services for their own internal use. For example, a Web
site developer who wants to create complex shipping and delivery options can
locate a Web Service offered by the United Parcel Service (UPS) and instantly
“plug it in” to his company’s Web site in a seamless fashion without having to
make any modifications to the internal systems.
Peer-to-Peer
Networking and Instant Messaging
In the past few years,
another major revolution in communication and data exchange has swept the
Internet. With the increasing number of machines and individuals now able to
access the Internet, file sharing has moved from centralized servers to the
desktop.
Individuals can quickly
exchange messages, files, and other information with each other on an on-demand
basis. Known as peer-to-peer networks
(P2P), this “instant file shar-ing” technology was popularized by the Napster
movement, which aimed to facilitate the sharing of music, albeit often
copyrighted. Despite the negative publicity attached to Napster, P2P technology
has shown that it can be useful in many other arenas, both within and external
to the walls of an organization.
In a similar vein, the ability
to quickly send messages to colleagues, friends, acquain-tances, and business
partners has been greatly enhanced by the ubiquity of Internet con-nectivity.
Originally popularized by AOL and ICQ, instant messaging of all sorts has
become very popular. Instant messaging has spread to many different devices,
ranging from desktop computers to cell phones, and has included such features
as desktop appli-cation sharing, video conferencing, and voice communications.
XML is quickly making its
presence felt in both of these rapidly growing technology areas. Various XML
specifications and protocols are being used to allow individuals and
organizations to send instant messages, locate other users, and locate,
exchange, and store files on peer-to-peer networks in an open and
nonproprietary manner.
Getting
More Meaning out of the Web: The Semantic Web
The very nature of XML allows
users to create their own tags that represent the context and meaning of data.
However, there is nothing that prevents two or more organizations from calling
the same data element different things or using the same name for different
data elements. Furthermore, how will computers be able to understand the
various ways of representing the same information? To a human, “PO,” “Purchase
Order,” and “PurchOrd” all mean the same thing, but to a computer, they are all
as different as “cow,” “swim,” and “Volkswagen.” Crossing language boundaries
makes things even more diffi-cult. Not only do element names change
dramatically, but their context and possible meanings do as well.
The Semantic Web aims to
change all this by giving data elements additional ways of specifying their
meaning in a semantically relevant manner. A variety of XML-enabled initiatives
are on the front burner of the W3C and other major standards-setting
organiza-tions. We will soon be introduced to the terms ontology and topic maps
and learn how these new ways of looking at information and its meaning can help
computers and humans make better decisions about how to use data.
In the words of the World
Wide Web Consortium (W3C), “The Semantic Web is an extension of the current Web
in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers
and people to work in cooperation.”
The most practical of these implementations will help enable users to make better, more relevant searches. How many times have you used a search engine and found that 90 per-cent of the returned results are completely irrelevant? With a context-aware search engine, it is possible to turn that ratio on its head. Now, rather than wading through a zil-lion dead-end search engine entries, a user can zero in on the specific item of interest and make use of the information in the best means possible. The implications of the Semantic Web, made possible only through the use of XML, are tremendous.
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