IBM Offers a Sneak Peek at XML Data Management

IBM this week will announce a technology preview on its developerWorks Web site that demonstrates features of up-coming data management products that use XML and Web standards for data integration.

The preview, an outgrowth of development work in a project code-named Xperanto, provides a scenario of how a newly merged bank and financial services company could use such evolving XML standards as XQuery, an XML querying language, to provide a single view into data stored in multiple databases and data sources. The finished site went live last Thursday, and IBM is planning to formally announce it this week.

XQuery is in the working draft stage at the World Wide Web Consortium and is expected to reach a final public re-view stage later this year.

“The real customer pain point is how do they integrate all the different pieces of information they have all over the place,” said Nelson Mattos, director of information integration at IBM. “XML is a key component to achieve that, but you need more than that.”

Along with XML and XQuery, the Xperanto preview combines such technologies as Web services; federation, or the consolidated view of data from databases whether IBMs flagship DB2 or not; and full-text search across documents stored in databases.

Xperanto is IBMs major information integration initiative aiming to allow for aggregated access to structured and unstructured data from sources as far ranging as relational databases, XML documents, flat files, spreadsheets and Web services. IBM should be re-leasing some Xperanto capabilities in the second half of this year, said Mattos, an IBM distinguished engineer who is lead-ing Xperanto from IBMs Silicon Valley Lab in San Jose, Calif. Xperanto cuts across both IBMs DB2 and data management business and its content management products.

The preview can be accessed at www.ibm.com/software/data/developer/demos/xperanto.