News
DataDirect bows XML transformer
- By Peter Bochner
- September 25, 2002
With XML emerging as a dominant technology for sharing information in
Web-based applications, IT organizations often need to transform data from their
relational databases to XML and back again. Unfortunately, when it comes to
updating XML across multiple enterprise data sources, IT groups face integration
issues because major database providers may have proprietary XML extensions.
Data access software provider DataDirect Technologies has come up with what
it claims is an especially efficient way of transforming data between relational
and XML formats. A software component called jXTransformer allows developers to
create XML data from any relational database (or update any RDBMS with XML
input). They can write XML code once, and have that work across multiple
relational databases.
Companies other than DataDirect are also trying to solve this problem. Native
XML database players like eXcelon Corp., Software AG and Hit Software are
working on the problem by expressing XML content directly in the database
itself. 'The products have similar capabilities,' said Paul Hessinger, chief
marketing officer at DataDirect. 'But while the others are providing a
permanent, persistent storage place for XML documents, we are transforming and
using the relational data store as a permanent storage place for XML data.'
DataDirect is betting that enterprises want a single database to hold both
XML documents and structured data. Hessinger likens the situation to the advent
of object-oriented DBMSs, which fared poorly compared to established relational
stores. 'Organizations didn't want a situation where [they] had some of [their]
data over here and some over there,' he noted.
The company is making one other supposition. If RDBMS makers IBM, Microsoft
and Oracle agree on a consistent approach to XML implementation, that would
throw a big monkey wrench in DataDirect's plans. But the likelihood of that
happening 'is not all that great,' claims Hessinger. 'With the broad market
penetration these companies have, it's not very much in their interest to come
up with a standards approach.'
Hessinger said the simplest pricing model for jXTransformer would cost about
$5,000, and would include a single CPU license for $2,500 as well as an
additional $2,500 per database for a DataDirect Connect for JDBC driver. The
technology will also be OEMed to other software vendors, he
said.