IBM Version 5 manual XML within an organization

XML formats and standardization. Examples of these are inter-bank payment between banks, insurance companies and trading agencies, supply-chains between manufacturers, distributors and retailers, battlefield information between soldiers, satellites and defence analysts.

In December 2000, the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) and the Organizations for the Advancements of Standard Information Standards (OASIS) came together to initiate a project to standardize XML specifications for business. This initiative called the Electronic Business XML (ebXML) developed a technical framework that enabled XML to be utilized for all exchange of all electronic business data. The main aim of ebXML was to lower the cost and difficulties, focusing on small and medium sized business and developing nations, in order to facilitate international trade.

Another example, BizTalk, is an initiative supported by Microsoft, SAP, and Boeing, among other major vendors. However, BizTalk is not a standard, more of an community of users. Its aim to enable consistent adoption of XML to ease use, and therefore, easily adopt electronic commerce and application integration.

1.3.2 XML within an organization

With the emergence of Customer Relation Management (CRM) and Enterprise Architecture Integration (EAI), customer oriented organizations have re-engineered their systems to provide a whole new experience for the consumer.

CRM and EAI involve bringing together a multitude of applications and systems from multiple vendors to behave as a coordinate whole. The common thread between all these applications is XML. Imagine trying to integrate information from billing histories, customer personal information and credit histories, distribution systems, and workforce management systems; and then displaying them using browsers, databases, processes, and workflow systems on a variety of technical platforms like mainframes, PCs, and medium sized servers. All this information can be shared by using XML, because it is a versatile, powerful, and flexible language. It has the ability of describing complex data. It is also extensible, allowing applications to grow and develop without architectural re-engineering.

Needless to say, IBM has used XML in all its new tools. IBM’s mainstay applications: WebSphere Studio, DB2, and WebSphere Application Server are based upon XML with their extensibility being a major advantage.

6 The XML Files: Development of XML/XSL Applications Using WebSphere Studio