1. Future directions Chip Casanave Data Access Worldwide Miami, Florida

2. Trends and technologies  Low cost PC’s  Thin clients  Wireless Clients  N-tier applications  XML

3. XML Definitions  The universal format for data on the Web. XML...describes and delivers rich, structured data from any application in a standard, consistent way. Microsoft  The eXtensible Markup Language is a mechanism for defining standard Web- based formats for the interchange of information. Webreview

4. What is XML?  A “tagging” language like HTML  Tags are user defined  Derives from “SGML”  Standard Generalized Markup Language  SGML: very big and complex; too much so for general acceptability  XML is usable but with SGML’s power

5. XML benefits  Structured documents  Delivering data to web pages & devices  XML data is independent of its formatting and presentation  XML data does not need to have knowledge of its “user” or target environment

6. XML application  Intelligent documents  For searching, device independent output  Device and application independent facility to “containerize” structured data  Thin client communication with application servers (e.g. WAP)  Automated communication between/among application servers

7. XML essentials  It’s about DATA  XML can represent complex, structured data  XML offers independence of…  Data  Environment / Operating System  DBMS  Application environment

8. Industry Support  Microsoft  Windows 2000, BizTalk commerce framework  IBM  DB2 Universal Database ver. 6.0  Extensive XML facilitation in Java  CommerceNet  Electronics industry supply chain initiative  More….

9. Check point...  A standard that allows data to be moved between disparate systems with ease  A standard that can produce data with complete ignorance of the requirements of the target environment  A standard that has wide industry support  A standard that is centered on the Internet

10. What does XML look like?  General format: element

11. XML example Chip Casanave Data Access Worldwide United States Tom Aczel FlexTools Australia

12. XML is a standard container  Loaded with variable content (freight / data )  Handling equipment manipulates the container  Standard transportation moves the container to its destination  Standard equipment unloads the container

13. Origin Handling Transportation...

14. Destination handling

15. DataFlex & XML  Core DataFlex technology is well suited to be an XML “handler”  DataFlex database connectivity enables DataFlex to be a bridge between XML and any back end DBMS  DataFlex WebApp Server is an engine for delivering or receiving XML data/content over the web

16. DAC direction...  Add XML handling capability to core DataFlex technology  Implement standards based interfaces to XML  Interface with customers to refine design  Compete aggressively to be a leader in the exploding XML tools market

17. FleXML ™  Wrap database information with XML tags and export to XML document  Parse data from XML document to data structure  Provide environment for creating & maintaining XML tags for databases (“DBBuilder+”)  Manage multiple tag sets per database  Create database from DTD or schema and create DDO’s to contain properties  Create DTD schema or DTD from DataFlex tag set and DDO

18. Database FleXML Server Any XML Client Any XML Server XML Document Desktop Application Web Browser Web Browser Desktop Application XML enabled Database XML Document ImportExport FleXML™

19. Technical overview Technology demonstration Mike Gouker Data Access Worldwide Miami, Florida