XML in eBusiness

1
XML in eBusiness

• Spring 2005
• Dave Hollander
• Chief Technology Officer
• Contivo, Inc

2
XML BackgroundInformation AgeXML Origins
Markup
3
Questions Origins

• Why is XML such an important development?
• What are the benefits of XML compared to HTML?
• What was the most challenging thing during
  implementing XML?
• What was the creative process in envisioning XML
  from SGML? What was the spark/moment of clarity
  that started the process rolling?
• What was the goal behind creating XML?

4
Information Age or is it?

• Guttenberg
• Industrial Age
• The Web
• InfoGlut
• Information
• It is 3º outside.
• Knowledge info action
• It is 3º out, put on a coat.
• Wisdom knowledge context
• Why bother, I am just jumping in the hot tub!

5
The Promise of XML

• XML is the standard platform for information
  convergence
• XML Enables Information Reuse
• Global interchange
• Machine processing
• New uses for documents
• Values of XML
• Feature/Complexity balance
• Enables semantic processing
• User defined semantics

Interchangeable Parts drove the Industrial
AgeReusable Information drives the Information
Age
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Origins of XML

• 1988 ISO 8879 SGML
• 1996 April (WWW2)
• XML vision written in a taxiby Jon Bosak and
  Dave Hollander
• 1996 November - introduced to SGML Community
• 1997 March - First press articles
• 1997 April (WWW6) - introduced to Web Community
• 1998 February - XML 1.0
• 1999 January - XML Namespaces
• 2001 May - XML Schema
• 2001 October - XSL Recommendation
• 2002 February - XML Digital Signatures

I didnt actually build it, but it was based on
my idea.
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Why XML?

• XML was designed to manage documents on the web
• Team included architects of HP.COM and
  DOCS.SUN.COM
• Reuse content made for print in multiple web
  pages
• data sheets, white papers etc.
• Present a more organized view of information
• We faced significant differences in how our
  organizations structured information
• So, the answer was to create XML to
• Interchange document information between groups
• Make it easy to publish content standards
• Separate content from presentation
• which makes it easy to build tools that reuse
  information

8
The design goals for XML

1. XML shall be straightforwardly usable over the
   Internet.
2. XML shall support a wide variety of applications.
   
3. XML shall be compatible with SGML.
4. It shall be easy to write programs which process
   XML documents.
5. The number of optional features in XML is to be
   kept to the absolute minimum, ideally zero.
6. XML documents should be human-legible and
   reasonably clear.
7. The XML design should be prepared quickly.
8. The design of XML shall be formal and concise.
9. XML documents shall be easy to create.
10. Terseness in XML markup is of minimal importance.

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XML

• XML is the eXtensible Markup Language
• Evolved from ISO Standard SGML
• Designed to
• Add structure to Web documents
• Be simple (25 pages)
• XML has expanded well beyond its original goals

XML is a TGE (TLA Generation Engine)
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But what is it?

• XML is a meta-language for creating markup
  languages
• Markup information that computers use
• XML makes it easy and reliable for computers
  (and humans) to identify markup in documents.
• Meta-language a language to create languages
• XML allows you to design a markup language that
  describes what is important to you.

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Markup

• Simple Syntax that make it easy to separate
  data from meta-data
• Markup includes
• Elements
• Attributes
• Comments
• Entity references
• Processing instructions
• CDATA sections
• Document type declarations

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Meta-Language

• Meta-language
• A language to create languages
• User defined semantics (meaning)
• HTML has fixed semantics
• Each meta-language
• Defined by a schema
• May be implicitly defined
• Referred to as a dialect

lt?xml version"1.0"?gt ltShoppingCartgt ltProductListgt
Daves Order lt/ProductListgt ltPartgt 00000-99999
lt/Partgt lt/ShoppingCartgt
XML is a meta-language for creating markup
languages
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XML is Descriptive Markup

• XML is Descriptive HTML is procedural
• Describe and assign a name to a class of data
• Multiple behaviors can be assigned to each class
• Examples layout, search, database, eCommerce
• find the part numbers in all shopping carts
• Markup is only valuable if you know what it
  means!

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Questions Origins

• What was the creative process in envisioning XML
  from SGML? What was the spark/moment of clarity
  that started the process rolling?
• Laziness
• Community of practice w/ 100 years of experience
• Walk through, feature by feature askingis this
  necessary for success
• What was the goal behind creating XML?
• My favorite information reuse

15
Questions Origins

• Why is XML such an important development?
• XML is foundation of information interchange
• What are the benefits of XML compared to HTML?
• User defined markup
• More extensive application space
• What was the most challenging thing during
  implementing XML?
• Agreeing on is it necessary

16
XML ApplicationsXML SpecificationsXML
ProcessorsApplications
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Questions Applications

• I know XML is very compatible to many of modern
  languages, is it compatible to old languages like
  COBOL
• Compare XML to EDI and explain the different
  industry-specific dialects or standards that
  exist today.
• What are the recent trends and forecasts for
  corporate use of XML in integrating the
  enterprise both internally and externally?

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XML Specifications

• XML Instance Document the Data
• Schemas the contract
• Style-sheets user interface
• XQuery finding data
• Web Services interchange of data
• Protocol
• n 1 (computer science) rules determining the
  format and transmission of data

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The W3C XML Family

• XML Coordination Group
• XML Core
• errata, X-Include, Information Set
• XML Schema
• Parts 0, 1, 2, 3
• XML Linking WG
• XML Base, Xpath, Xlink, Xpointer
• XML Query WG
• Data Model, Algebra, Language
• XML Namespaces

• XML Protocols WG
• XSL WG
• XSL, XSLT
• XML DSIG
• XML Signature,
• Canonical XML
• DOM ( Levels 1, 2, 3 )
• Others
• XML-Encryption
• VoiceXML
• XForms WG
• SMIL, SVG
• XHTML
• RDF

More than 20 horizontal XML specifications!
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XQuery

• XQuery 1.0 An XML Query Language
• W3C Working Draft 04 April 2005
• Still at least 3 months from Recommendation
• Covers
• XPATH addressing single elements in an XML
  document
• Query like SQL
• Limitations
• No semantics
• No mechanism to normalize multiple data resource
  results

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W3C XML Schemas

• Schema defined in a .xsd file (usually)
• Schemas
• Defines Classes of documents
• Defines structure, constraints and datatypes
• Validation
• Schemas can only express part of the semantics.
• Relax NG is schema specification similar to W3C
• Schemas are a contract to interchange
  information.

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XML Schemas

• Many Different ways to markup data

1) ltBUYER_NAMEgt JOHN SMITH lt/BUYER_NAMEgt 2)
ltBUYER_NAMEgt ltLASTgt SMITH lt/LASTgt ltFIRSTgt
JOHN lt/FIRSTgt lt/BUYER_NAMEgt 3) ltNAME
roleBUYER"gt ltSURNAME BSR_CODENAM-01"gt
SMITH lt/SURNAMEgt ltGIVEN BSR_CODENAM-02"gt
JOHN lt/GIVENgt lt/NAMEgt

• Which is right?

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Schemas Reflect Business Models

• Prescriptive vs. permissive
• who pays to make the data right?
• Loose vs. tight
• how many semantics are expressed?
• easy to author vs. reuse
• Interchange model
• blind or pre-defined partners?
• Extensibility
• kept up to date vs. predictability

CALS
The Waterloo Model
Authors Intent
DocBook
Pinnacles
RosettaNet
Shopping Cart
Validate your data against a business model.
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XML has Namespaces

• How is software to recognize markup it knows how
  to process, and avoid confusing it with markup
  designed for the use of some other software? 1
• Namespaces allow documents to be merged without
  name collisions.
• Can be used to identify an authority for the
  element type

lt?xml version"1.0"?gt ltMyDoc xmlnshttp//mhxml.c
om/ns1 xmlnshphttp//hp.c
om/ns2gt ltpartgt 00000-99999lt/partgt
lt!-- from default namespace --gt lthppartgt
00000-99999-hplt/hppartgt lt!-- from HP
namespace --gt lt/MyDocgt
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XML Tools

• XML enabled reuse of core technology
• Parsers
• DOM, SAX, others
• Processors
• App servers, java, .Net
• Databases
• Native and Enabled
• Free, or at least inexpensive
• http//www.xml.com/programming/

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XML as Data Model

• Relational
• Entity Relation Model
• Normalization Plan
• BLOBs/CLOBs
• Queries
• Grievances
• Signers and states
• Declarations
• Hierarchical (XML)
• Elements, attributes
• Structure
• Constraints

Now, tell me whos proudest?
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Legacy

• XML does not support non-XML data resources
• COBOL
• EDI
• Others
• It is possible, and often a good idea to use XML
  to harmonize data.

Semantic Harmonization
Schema Reconciliation
Semantic Reconciliation
Syntax
Semantic
Harmonized
XML
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Beyond XML and B2B

• Volume of transactions
• Security, Reliability, Predictability
• Reduced Cost of Procurement

EDI Technology
demand for XML eCommerce Technology
demand for EDI
demand for technology Z
XML Technology
Performance Metric

• Reuse, leverage and communities
• Semantics
• Cost of new product deployment
• One-to-one business
• Security, Reliability, Predictability?
• Completeness?

Technology Z

• Interoperability
• Flexibility and Agility
• Number of trading partners
• Global supply chains
• Reduced setup and TCO
• One-to-one marketing

Time
Ref Innovators Dilemma Clayton Christensen
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Compare to EDI
ISA00 00 010819405530010
01153734900 0001140927U00302000160473
0P. GSPOCOMDEXD710-8500001140927161441X
003020. ST850290267. BEG00DS20-P1-749833000
114. NTEORISHIP ASAP. FOBCCOR. DTM002000114.
N1STLUCENT TECHNOLOGIES9299. N367 WHIPPANY
RDCAHNDANG. N4WHIPPANYNJ07981.
I have no idea what this might mean!

• EDI error rates can approach 85.
• HTML parsing requires up to 50 of the code in
  your favorite browser!

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EDI Values

• The 20-80 Rule
• Build for the 20 who do 80 of the business
• Throughput
• Primary Design Metric
• Information Design Metric
• Low Character Count
• Move context data to TPA
• Interoperability
• Between trading partners
• Semantics
• Defined in Standards and TPA

Throughput
Interoperability
Semantics
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XML Values

• SGML for the Web
• Make it easy to interchange documents on the
  web
• Interoperability
• Primary Design Metric
• Loosely coupled systems
• Information Design Metrics
• Self-describing messages
• Ease of processing
• Semantics
• User defined
• Machine and Human
• Throughput
• Not primary metric

Throughput
Interoperability
Semantics
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New Metrics?

• eCommerce
• Process Effectiveness
• Agility flexibility, adaptability
• Strategic Business Relationships
• Evolution in Marketplace Dynamics
• Technology ( Hubs, I-servers, portals )
• XML
• Technical Maturity
• Standards ( Schemas, XSL, Query )
• Interoperability ( New TLAs )
• Products ( Contivo )
• New Axis?

Throughput
Interoperability
Semantics
It is hard for me to believe that anything will
replace XML for information interoperability
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New Technology Adoption

• New, disruptive, technology succeeds when
  performance metrics change
• B2B EDI
• Build for the 20 who do 80 of the business
• EAI
• Connectivity between high value, internal
  business applications
• Web Services
• standards describing interoperability
• detailed enough to be definitive
• flexible enough to describe any system
• scalable to be pervasive
• easy to implement

Clayton Christensen Innovators Dilemma
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Integration and Information Silos

• Business face a challenge to sustain competencies
  built around their systems and to integrate the
  systems to create new business solutions.
• Requirements
• ROI and TCO
• Flexible built to integrate
• Evolvable support legacy and change
• Loosely Coupled - able to support independent
  development efforts

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Integration

• Developers using middleware need three answers
• How are messages moved?
• Physical infrastructure selection
• What messages are exchanged and in what order?
• Delivery, Workflow and/or Collaboration
• What do the messages mean?
• Logical and Conceptual understanding

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The Fundamental Challenge
Interoperability requires interfaces between
applications to be standardized.
(Gartner Group)
The remaining 95 is a function of application
semantics.
Only 5 is a function of the middleware
choice.
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Taming the Integration Hairball

• Physical
• multiple interconnect technologies
• deploy middleware
• Logical
• no messaging standards
• deploy canonicals
• Conceptual
• no centralized design model
• deploy semantic modeling

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Vocabulary Driven
VocabularyEnrichment
Business Process Requirements
DomainModeling
DomainModeling
SAP RMD
Oracle RMD
Gap Analysis
InterfaceModeling
InterfaceModeling
Mapping
SAP Service Interface (XML Schema)
Oracle Service Interface (XML Schema)
Code Generation
XML Wrapper
XML Wrapper
SAPAPI
OracleAPI
SAP
Oracle
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Questions Applications

• I know XML is very compatible to many of modern
  languages, is it compatible to old languages like
  COBOL
• Not directly.
• There are some tools for converting their data
  and some tools for programming XML w/ COBOL

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Security
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Security

• Security is mostly a business problem, not a
  technical one.
• Risk, trust and security depend on human
  management of relationships and assessment.
• Technology just adds more risk.
• Are there any security challenges on XML?
• Visibility

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Data Interchange the UUP example

• I had a question when it comes to XML in the use
  of the Universal User Profile (UUP).  In light of
  today's security and privacy concerns, do you
  think this concept will take off at some point? 
• I already trust ebay, paypal, etc with some of
  this info
• With Passport not being used by as many people as
  Microsoft had hoped and no other visible vendor
  pushing an alternate, it's acceptance seems
  doubtful. 
• The trick will be if someone emerges with a model
  that adds more value than riskto me, the
  consumer.

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Security

•  How can we embed security functionality in XML
  environment?
• Encryption is just changing the visibility.
• In Schwab's case, it is mentioned that there is
  no security mechanism in XML or SOAP.  How can we
  overcome this pitfall in e-business environment?
• It will take additional technology and industry
  initiatives.
• And as a follow-up question (to UPP), are there
  any security safeguards in place within XML or is
  that left solely up to those writing the
  applications that use XML. 

44
Chaord

• The Emergence of the Chaord
• Any self-organizing, adaptive, nonlinear,
  complex community or system, whether physical,
  biological or social, the behavior of which
  exhibits characteristics of both order and chaos.
  Or, more simply stated, a Chaord is any
  chaotically ordered complex system.

Dee Hock Founder and CEO Emeritus - VISA Oct. 22,
1994
42
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Futures
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Questions XML Web Services and eComm

• What is the future of XML in e-business?
• Are there ways to apply XML that are not
  currently being done?
• Do you think they will be realized?
• What are the threats to XML to remain open
  source?
• What are some upcoming developments in Web
  Services and XML?
• How is security implemented in XML vs. Web
  Services?
• Any risk in deployment of XML related
  technologies in e-Commerce and any solutions to
  overcome?
• What are the disadvantages and advantages of XML
  in e-commerce?

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XML Breaks The Camels Hump
Source Dr. David Clark, head of Advanced Network
Architecture research group, MITs Laboratory for
Computer Science
Activity
Research
Standards
Billion dollar investments
Time
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Kann ich bitte ein Glas Wasser haben?

• Presentment
• Again, louder
• Reword
• Reduction
• Gesture
• Translate

• Fulfillment
• Guess
• Look Up
• Partial Understanding
• Full Understanding
• shared context

Wuerden Sie mir bitte ein Glas Wasser reichen?
Secondary Factors Secondary Factors
Trust Policy Ability Anticipation Motivation
Wasser bitte!
WASSER!!!!!!
Can I please a glass of water have?
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The Evolution of e-Commerce

• Silicon chips made computer ubiquitous

• GUIs made using computers ubiquitous

• The Web made accessing content ubiquitous

• XML made understanding content ubiquitous

• Web services promise to bring these all together
  and make networks of computers useful and
  ubiquitous

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Business Case

• Tight coupling
• Resources
• high set up costs
• management attention
• Small numbers of partners
• lengthy negotiations
• detailed contracts
• extensive monitoring of performance

Coordination costs are steep
51
Loosely Coupled Applications

• What company can ignore the benefits of
• partnering with business specialists?
• outsourcing non-core activities to focused
  providers?
• The virtues of collaboration are clear
  innovation and efficiency.
• In the quest for higher performance, companies
  at the cutting edge of process management
• gain flexibility and improve performance
• handle critical cross-company processes as
  networks rather than production lines
• swap their tightly coupled processes for loosely
  coupled ones.
• Text excerpts from the McKinsey Quarterly 2002
  Number 2
• Graphics from Enterprise E-Commerce

52
Data at the Edge
New technologies do not create chaos, they
expose and accelerate it.

• In 1869 the transcontinental railroad enabled and
  accelerated the migration westward.
• In the 40s and 50s, the interstate system
  enabled and accelerated migration to the
  suburbs.

• In the 80s and 90s computing become less
  centralized
• Accelerated by PCs, relational databases, SQL,
  the Web
• Data migrated out of glass houses and closer to
  the user
• Web Services, XQuery, XML
• The latest technologies to help people get better
  control over data and processes that help them in
  their daily activities
• and in doing so, data will migrate closer to the
  edge

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Sources of Semantic Chaos

• Data at the edge enables different processes for
• different payment history and methods
• different customers and partners
• different legal jurisdictions
• Data at the edge is more personalized
• Call Sally
• My cell phone knows who I mean
• A centralized corporate directory does not
• With personalization comes differences
• with differences comes semantic chaos

Dont blame my phone.
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The Information Continuum
Generating Intellectual Capital

• Creating new knowledge from existing knowledge

Adding Context
High

• Driving business processes with knowledge

• Classifying documents, creating classification
  schemes

Increasing Value

• Collecting information about the quality and
  usefulness of the information

Managing Assets

• Putting information into managed locations

Level of Investment
Low
Capture
Organize
Synthesize
Evaluate
Low
High
Process Complexity
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eXtreme Semantics

• Semantics Data Behavior1
• Semantic Interoperability
• Adaptive systems sharing semantic descriptions
• The future requires new standards and systems

• Semantics is the traction point between data and
  processes
• Practical When a friend says cool... dont put
  on a coat
• System Purchase orders trigger processes to
  manufacture, package, ship and bill

1 Semantics in Business Systems The Savvy
Managers Guide Dave McComb Morgan Kauffman
September 2003ISBN 1-55860-917-2
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Questions XML Web Services and eComm

• What is the future of XML in e-business?
• XML will remain a foundation of information
  interchange and information interchange is a
  foundation of e-business.
• Are there ways to apply XML that are not
  currently being done?
• Validation
• Do you think they will be realized?
• Yes, there is now technology that makes it
  affordable.
• What are the threats to XML to remain open
  source?
• Our selves. We are making it so complex that some
  one can come in and just fix it for us.
• Complexity is creating a new priesthood
• The very reason we broke SGML

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XML Challenge

• Because XML was so stripped down, it was easy to
  adopt and extend because it was so stripped
  down, adopters almost had to extend it.
• And we did. And other people did, too.   You now
  have
• XML XLINK XSL Namespaces Infoset XML
  Linking XPointer Framework XPointer
  namespaces XPointer xptr() XSLT XPath XSL
  FO DOM Sax stylesheet linking PI XML
  Schema XQuery XML Encryption XML
  Canonicalization XML Signature DOM Level 2
  DOM Level 3.
• But it grew. It grew more complex. It grew
  confusing.

http//www.mhxml.com/projects/w3c/xml-is-five-fina
l.htm
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Learning XML

• Should XML be a required class for all
  Information Technology graduates?
• Yes. Information is the core of IT
• NO. It would be difficult to assure the quality
  of that education.
• What is the best way to go about learning XML?
• Reliable Books
• Modeling Business Objects with XML Schema
• System Architecture with XML
• Just Do It
• www.xpriori.com
• See Also
• http//www.xml.com/axml/testaxml.htm

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Thank You

• Daves Web Sites
• Contivo - http//www.contivo.com
• Personal - http//www.mhxml.com
• dmh_at_mhxml.com

First Sheeps Law of the universe Everything
has both intended and unintended consequences.
The intended consequences may or may not happen
the unintended consequences always do!
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