XML on your net, 09/27/99

By AMANDA MITCHELL HENRY
Network World, 09/27/99

To be sure, XML is a hot topic. Mention the three-letter acronym and vendors prick up their ears, proclaim their commitment to this rising Internet star and exalt its magic. XML will make interoperability among network applications better, network managers' jobs easier, data interchange simpler and reusing Web content faster, they assert.

Yes, the list of claimed benefits that the emerging XML standard brings to enterprise users is long. But while vendors are announcing support for XML at a frenzied pace, enterprise users struggle to understand what XML is and why they should deploy it.

Pundits say XML is useful for Web and document publishing, electronic commerce, research applications, content management and customer support. As a set of protocols used for creating tag languages, XML goes beyond HTML by actually describing information in a way that can be easily read and understood among disparate computer systems - and people.

"XML is human readable, it provides a text format, which means I can process XML with any text handling tool, and it is an open standard," says Jon Bosak, XML architect at Sun in Palo Alto, and recognized "father of XML."

But XML deployment is slim. In a recent survey, CAP Ventures of Norwell, Mass., found that less than one-quarter of 250 respondents were implementing or planning XML projects this year or next. However, respondents did indicate that spending on XML would increase from there.

Because deployments to date are minimal, XML's impact on the enterprise is untested. Still, expectations are that the positives will far outweigh the negatives. In fact, planned support for XML in management tools and directory services could mean that XML solves management problems, rather than creates them.

"XML is going to make the life of network managers a lot easier," says Barry Briggs, chief technology officer of Interleaf, a Waltham, Mass., company that makes an XML tool. "Within five years, everything that travels across the network is going to be based on XML in one way or another; XML will behave as a lingua franca that makes network managers' jobs much simpler" by converging information and multiple IT job functions, he explains.

Early adopters see XML as a productivity booster that does little damage to the network's performance. Take, for example, the Practitioners Publishing Company (PPC), a Thompson Corp. division that caters to accountants. PPC is testing Interleaf's BladeRunner tool with hopes that XML will speed the process of porting the same content into a variety of formats. By using XML, a technical writer and production person do not need to reformat content every time it is moved to a different format.

"It takes a lot of effort to produce the same thing multiple times," says Gary Gillette, director of product systems at PPC in Fort Worth, Texas. "We want a repository that will help us generate our content whether in print, CD-ROM or online and we want to feed that content into software applications."

Gillette predicts little impact on PPC's network from XML once deployed in production mode. However, he cautions: "If anything, [deploying XML] could be a slight drag on the network performance because we'll have many more people accessing the information and there will be more applications used to access and deal with the content elements."

Where XML stands

XML has good reason for lingering in the netherworld between buzzword and something that users want to rush out and buy. The first real wave of XML-compliant software only began shipping last April, launched en masse at Spring Internet World.

And it only captured browser maker and network management consortium support in the past year. For example, Sun announced plans for a Java extension for XML, and the Desktop Management Task Force released an XML encoding spec that would have its Common Information Model (CIM) data use XML as part of its Web-based Enterprise Management (WBEM) initiative (see story, below).

In July, Novell announced plans to add support for XML to Novell Directory Services, and Bowstreet Software has gathered broad industry support around Directory Services Markup Language (DSML), which is based on XML and the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol.

Not bad for a specification that has been on the IT world's radar screen for less than two years. XML Version 1.0 arrived in February 1998, when a World Wide Web Consortium working group, led by Bosak, took the Standard Generalized Markup Language and streamlined it into a practical metalanguage. Version 1.0 remains the current specification, and details of when the next incarnation will appear are sketchy.

And some mystery surrounds XML's performance abilities, given low rates of deployment. XML is designed to work best in an environment of "loosely coupled protocols," such as the Web, where managers don't have central control over all the nodes, Bosak says. While there are significant gains to be made in data interchange from XML's open design, the trade-off may be speed on the client.

"The XML design effort explicitly ruled out efficiency as a goal of the format itself," Bosak says. "There is an open question as to how much efficiency we really traded off."

Security also is of concern. "Any time you expose something in a standard format, you have to ask how secure is that packet of material," says Arvind Narain, a director of product marketing at Network Associates in Santa Clara, Calif. "Is it tagged for security or does it require additional authentication?"

On the bright side for network managers, Narain points to the support for XML in WBEM and how that will lay the groundwork for sharing device information among management tools. For example, any record set that can be posted as an XML file would then become available to reporting and management products that support XML, including those from Network Associates.

"As it relates to WBEM and CIM, XML is going to be key to the success of interoperable management applications, with CIM as the standard data model and XML for encoding and accessing that data," says Barb Goldworm, director at Enterprise Management Associates, a research firm in Boulder, Colo.

The advantages of adding XML support to directories similarly benefits enterprise users. It gives directories much needed interoperability. For instance, Bowstreet's DSML scheme defines the directory contents so any directory can tap and use the data.

The DSML effort has garnered support from big industry players, including IBM, Microsoft and Novell. Because DSML will let directory information be shared among XML applications, it could be key for e-commerce partners that share information such as purchase orders or even for separate networked applications that rely on a single directory.

XML has barely buzzed out the door, but it has already secured predictions of a steep adoption curve. Still, as with any buzzword, time will tell whether the advantages of XML are real or not. For now, XML is at least worth a closer look.

Related links:

Henry is a freelance writer in San Carlos, Calif.

Net management with XML
Sharing management information could get easier when XML comes into play. Buzz Issue, 9/27/99.

XML talk
Listen to Network World columnists Scott Bradner, Tom Nolle and James Kobielus deflate XML hype in this 9-minute discussion (requires the free RealPlayer G2).

Net Resources: XML
Includes articles, primers and FAQs about XML.

Salomon Smith Barney taps XML for Web documents
Network World Fusion, 9/8/99.

XML to the rescue
Network World, 9/6/99.

Quark announces push into XML, partnership with Vignette
Network World, 8/27/99.

Microsoft Launches XML Support Center
InfoWorld, 8/26/99.

Download XML tools from Network World

XML could play key role in directory interoperability
Network World, 7/19/99.

The W3C's XML page

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