- 27 -
Figure 2.6:
Organization’s information exchange dilemma.
The ideal solution therefore is to present data to each application in such a way that it
can be intelligently processed. Here’s where XML comes in handy. Without going into the
technical details for now (we go into more details in later chapters in this book) XML acts
as an ideal exchange format between applications. Here’s how XML is deployed to create
a comprehensive solution (summarized in Figure 2.7):
1.
You convert the information stored in your database (from any format) to an XML
format. XML documents can handle textual information as well as pointers to binary
files so if your database is a multimedia database with lots of graphics, sounds, or
other binary formats, XML documents can still handle it.
2.
Once it is in an XML format, vendors are able to universally parse (read) your XML
document, which is made up of your initial data. They use freely available XML
parsers to reduce their development time so that they can almost immediately begin
to process the data stored in your XML documents.
Figure 2.7:
A minimalist representation of how XML can be used as a solution
for exchanging information between applications.
