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Making best use of XML within the enterprise

 panel discussion of issues and implications
 Rivers, Adrian 
 
 Adrian  Rivers
 Managing Director
  RivCom 
 Swindon 
 United Kingdom 
 Wiltshire 
RivCom,  Lotmead Business Village
Swindon  Wiltshire  SN4 0UY United Kingdom
Phone: +44 (0)1793 792003 Fax: +44(0)1793 792001 email: adrian.rivers@rivcom.com web site: www.rivcom.com
 Biography
 Adrian Rivers - Adrian is Managing Director o RivCom, a consultancy and services company specializing in helping businesses adopt XML technologies to meet their information management and distribution needs. RivCom has been actively involved in the development of the XML family of standards as active members of W3C (including the XSL Working Group), OASIS, as joint project leader of the STEP/SGML harmonisation initiative under ISO, and as software development lead in the recently completed European XML/EDI Pilot Project.
Gennusa, Pam
 
 Pam  Gennusa
 European Representative
  London 
 OASIS 
 United Kingdom 
OASIS,  London  United Kingdom
Phone: +44 (0)171 920 0327 Fax: +44 (0) 171 920 0342 email: pgennusa@oasis-open.org web site: www.oasis-open.org
 Biography
 Pam Gennusa - Pam is a consultant providing services to associations and consortia in the area of standards-based content management. She is the European Representative for OASIS, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, and she serves as the Conference Chair for XML Europe 2000, which is presented by the Graphic Communications Association (GCA). Previously, Pam was Managing Director of Database Publishing Systems Ltd where she led the consultancy and development between 1990 and 1999. During that time, she has served as consultant for a number of SGML/XML-related applications in the oil, pharmaceutical, telecommunications, and defence industries. Prior to joining DPSL, Pamela was the Director of Marketing for Datalogics, Inc. in the U.S. She has participated on both the ANSI and ISO committees responsible for the creation of ISO 8879 - SGML. Until 1992, she served as Co-Chair of the US CALS committee responsible for MIL-M-28001. Pam is a recipient of the GCA Tekkie Award. She served as President of the International SGML Users' Group from 1992-1999. She also served as Chief Marketing Officer and President on the first OASIS (known then as SGML Open) Board of Directors (1993-1995). In 1992, she became a member of the GCA Board of Directors, and served as Chairperson of that Board in 1997-98. She is also a member of the GCARI (GCA Research Institute) Board of Directors. Each Spring since 1991, Pam has chaired the GCA's SGML Europe Conference. As such, she leads the programme committee in determining the content, does all speaker management, and is responsible for the development of marketing materials and the conference proceedings.
Matthews, Brian
 
 Brian  Matthews
 Software Engineer, Systems Engineering
 Computing & Information Systems Department
 Didcot  
 Oxfordshire 
 United Kingdom 
Computing & Information Systems Department,  Rutherford Appleton laboratory & W3C Office,  Chilton
Didcot  Oxfordshire  OX11 0QX United Kingdom
Phone: +44 (0)1235 446648 Fax: +44 (0)1235 4456310 email: b.m.matthews@rl.ac.uk
 Biography
 Brian Matthews - Brian Matthews has a background in mathematics and formal modelling, including a PhD in theoretical computer science. He now works at RAL as a consultant and software engineer with the W3C UK Office and has experience in the application of W3C recommendations in science and industry. He is particularly interested in using RDF to organise and uncover information across distributed systems.
 The UK Office of the W3C is hosted by the IT department of the CLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (www.itd.clrc.ac.uk), the largest interdisciplinary government research centre in the UK. The W3C Office seeks to promote the activities of the W3C within the UK, and act as a channel for local feedback into W3C. These activities are all within the wider research, development and technology transfer mission of RAL within the European scientific and industrial communities.
 Mikula, Norbert H. 
 
 Norbert H.  Mikula
 Chief Technical Officer
  Bellevue 
 DataChannel 
 USA 
 Washington 
DataChannel,  600 108th NE
Bellevue   WA 98004 Washington USA
Phone: +1 425 974 4118 Fax: +1 425 637 1192 email: norbert@datachannel.com web site: www.datachannel.com
 Biography
 Norbert Mikula - Norbert is Chief Technology Officer of DataChannel. DataChannel are leaders in the development of XML-based Enterprise Information Portal technology and have developed a framework for the use of XML within the enterprise. Norbert developed the first validating parser for XML, is the author of numerous papers and has been a speaker at many international conferences and industry events. He is also Chief Technology Officer at OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards – www.oasis-open.org) a vendor neutral consortium dedicated to supporting users of XML and has established XML.ORG as a repository for XML schemas and DTDs.
Müller, Dr Klaus
 
 Dr Klaus  Müller
 Branch Head
 NATO C3 Agency/IS Division/AE Branch
 The Hague 
 The Netherlands 
NATO C3 Agency/IS Division/AE Branch,  P.O. Box 174
The Hague  The Netherlands
Phone: +31 (70) 314 2266 Fax: +31 (70) 314 2163 email: Klaus.Muller@nc3a.nato.int web site: www.nc3a.nato.int
 Biography
 Dr Klaus Müller - Klaus is Branch Head in the Information Systems Division of the NATO C3 Agency (the Consultation, Command and Control Agency - www.nc3a.nato.int). He is responsible for all XML work within the Agency, and was responsible for coordinating a workshop on XML strategy within the Agency which was held last November. The workshop, which included presentations from OASIS, Sun Microsystems, IBM, Microsoft and RivCom, analysed potential application areas for XML in NATO and assessed (in global terms) the benefits which adoption offers.
 Nicholson, Simon 
 
 Simon  Nicholson
 Market Development Manager
  California 
 Palo Alto 
 Sun Microsystems 
 USA 
Sun Microsystems,  901 San Antonio Road, UMPK17-101
Palo Alto  California  94303 USA
Phone: +1 650 786 4238 Fax: +1 650 786 5723 email: simon.nicholson@eng.sun.com
 Biography
 Simon Nicholson - Simon Nicholson serves on the OASIS Board of Directors, is a member of the XML.org Steering Committee, and also the Marketing Awareness Group at ebXML. Simon works for Sun Microsystems where he is the XML Market Development Manager. At Sun, Nicholson is a member of the XML Technology Centre which is responsible for the development of strategy, promotion, and application of XML within the Sun platforms. Prior to joining Sun, Simon was the European Business Development Manager for Chrystal Software. He is an active participant and spokesperson in industry events and conferences, where he represents both his company and OASIS.
 Abstract
 It is now generally accepted that XML will become established as a key enabler for Web and Internet-based enterprise information exchange and distributed computing. However, many user organisations are finding it is difficult to know how best to adopt a technology that has a role to play in so many aspects of an enterprise's information and IT architecture.
 At the 9th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW9), held in Amsterdam this May, RivCom, OASIS and the UK W3C Office ran a one-day Workshop of invited experts including XML consultants and representatives of vendors, standards bodies and user organisations. The aim of the Workshop was to identify and explore the issues facing organisations that are seeking to adopt XML and provide useful input to the Workshop organisers, who are considering the potential for developing a coherent set of materials that could be put in the public domain to support organisations seeking to gain benefit from the adoption of XML.
 In this panel discussion participants in the WWW9 Workshop will report on the agreed conclusions of the event, but also dynamically represent the differing views and unresolved issues that emerged within the Workshop.
 Note: At the time of writing the Workshop had not yet taken place so it is not possible to identify the issues and outcomes in this paper.
 

Issue

 All the major analysts agree. XML will become established as a key enabler for Internet-based enterprise information exchange and distributed computing. But while the importance of XML as an enabling technology is becoming well understood, organisations often find it difficult to know how best to develop a strategy to support the introduction of a technology that can play a role in so many aspects of an enterprise's information and IT architecture, including:
 
  • information deliver y - enabling information to be assembled from multiple sources to meet individual requirements
    •  
     
  • inter-application messaging - enabling data transfer within and between organizations to facilitate EDI and system interoperability
    •  
  • intra-application messaging - to supplement or replace such protocols as CORBA, COM/DCOM and Enterprise Java Beans in the development of distributed computing applications.
    •  Enterprises also have to determine how to respond to the fact that the supporting infrastructure is only now becoming capable of sustaining wide-scale adoption.
     Enterprises need to determine:
     
  • When to act? Should they wait until the whole family of XML standards is stable and XML is fully integrated into the major software products? Or should they seek to derive real benefits at an earlier stage?
    •  
  • How to start? Does XML lend itself to an incremental approach with pilot projects addressing issues relevant to specific domains within the enterprise? Or is it appropriate to develop an enterprise-wide strategy from the beginning?
    •  
  • Systems or information? Should we think of XML from a systems perspective, and focus on the benefits of improved IT architectures? Or is XML about information, requiring the development of improved business, information and data models before its benefits can be fully realised?
    •  
  • Alone or together? Some benefits can be achieved by adopting XML within the single enterprise, but others require the development of common DTDs and schemas throughout the supply chain and across industry sectors. How should the enterprise work with customers and suppliers to make the most effective use of XML? Or can individual enterprises "go-it-alone"? And what is the role of resources like XML.org and BizTalk and initiatiatives like ebXML?
    •  

    Workshop of practioners

     The organisers of the 9th International World Wide Web Conference, held in Amsterdam on 15 May 2000 invited RivCom, OASIS and the UK W3C Office to organise a one-day Workshop at the conference to address these issues.
     The Workshop brought together leading figures from the XML world representing user organisations, software vendors, consultancies and standards bodies, including representatives from Boeing, DataChannel, ebXML, Flash Creative Management, IBM, NATO, OASIS, and Sun Microsystems among many others.
     The Workshop explored the issues described above and sought to develop an initial framework of options that any organisation considering the adoption of XML might need to consider. The aim was to provide input and guidance to the organisers of the Workshop who were considering the potential for developing a set of materials that could be put in the public domain to support organisations seeking to make best use of XML within the Enterprise.
     

    The panel discussion

     In the panel discussion some of those who participated in the WWW9 Workshop will report on the proceedings of that event (including the areas of agreement and the planned forward path toward the development of publicly available materials aimed at supporting organisations seeking to make best use of XML within the enterprise). In addition the panel will seek to dynamically represent the differing views and unresolved issues that emerged within the WWW9 Workshop, thereby stimulating further discussion involving members of the audience. It is anticipated that this discussion will provide further input into the development of publicly available materials.
     Acknowledgements
     The panel members would like to acknowledge and thank all those that contributed to the WWW9 Workshop - Making Best Use of XML within the Enterprise.
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