Get It Together: Integrating Data with XML

摘要

Whatever the source of the data, it is becoming increasingly evident that companies must find a way to leverage all of their information and even to get disparate data to work together. Thus, more and more, enterprise IT departments must find a way to integrate data across different platforms from a variety of data sources. Many companies have been using XML in one form or another as a data integration tool for sometime, but as we move forward, systems and data integration becomes increasingly important―whether dealing with disparate internal databases, combining systems after a purchase or merger, or communicating with customers, suppliers, and business partners over the Internet. Above all of this hovers the potential of the Web Services model, which uses XML to move data across the Internet with the grand vision of creating a massive, integrated network moving information from company to company without regard to platform. Microsoft, which has been heavily focused on Web Services development with its. Net initiative, recently announced that its next version of Office would include XML support and also announced a toolkit that allows programmers to write code that communicates with XML-enabled Word and Excel templates, which offers the potential to bring XML to the desktop. Further, the United States government is poised to undertake one of the largest computer systems integration projects ever attempted with the formation of the Homeland Security Department, combining the computer systems and data from a mind-boggling 22 different departments. All of this is going to require XML to grease the data integration engine. When you put it all together, after years of discussion, XML appears ready to step to the forefront as the data integration method of choice.