PDM – XML is the talk of the show, but if it lives up to its promises, it will open up IT to all-comers – UNIX, Java. Is this really Microsoft’s strategy?
J.U. – Yes. HTML is a default, open format for Office 2000 and XML is used to store the formatting information.
PDM – Will XML be appropriate for the complex, large data objects in E&P?
J.U. – Not all data types are amenable to XML, but binary data can be encapsulated and XML supports C data types.
PDM – XML has an anachronistic flavor, can it really compete with CORBA?
J.U. XML is market driven. Distributed computing across the web cannot always support tight integration – hence the need for something simple that can cope with an e-commerce system which may take 12 hours to respond.
PDM – What role will these technologies have in technical to financial computing (ERP)?
J.U. – ERP to date is like a mediaeval fiefdom with its own rules and regulations. Communicating with such systems has been hard. We need to get ERP to implement a ’treaty’ - to offer-up say just five pieces of intelligible data.
PDM - so what is wrong with COM or CORBA in this context?
J.U. - We need robustness and simplicity - I do not want to trust your API, or to have to use SQL-Net - just send me standard XML and I will do what I like with it. The CORBA/business object approach is flawed because of the requirement to synchronize every protocol stack on every system - in other words for all 'fiefdoms' to become part of each other. This leads to the problem of the 'uberschema' an all-encompassing industry data model which we know is unrealizable.
Click here to comment on this article
If your browser does not work with the MailTo button, send mail to
pdm@oilit.com with PDM_V_3.3_9907_9 as the subject. © Oil IT Journal - all rights reserved.