XML Support in Future Microsoft® Products

 

October 1999

 

Contents

Windows® 2000
Microsoft SQL Server™ "Shiloh"
Microsoft "Babylon" Integration Server
Microsoft BizTalk™ Server
Microsoft Commerce Server 4.0
Microsoft Exchange 2000
Microsoft Visual Studio®
Additional Information

 

Windows 2000

Windows 2000 is the first operating system with integrated, high-performance XML support for easy data exchange between disparate businesses and enterprise systems. XML support can be found throughout Windows 2000, which includes a built-in, high-performance parser, support for XML streaming and persistence, XML recordset translation, and support for building XML data islands in Internet Explorer. The Microsoft XML Parser is a high-performance, validating parser fully compliant with the W3C XML 1.0 standard. By virtue of its componentized design, it is easily integrated with any Windows operating system-based application and programmed using any programming or scripting language. Further, it supports the W3C XML Document Object Model (DOM), the XML Stylesheet Language (XSL) W3C working draft and the XML 1.0 Namespaces Recommendation.

Microsoft SQL Server "Shiloh"

The next major release of Microsoft SQL Server, code named "Shiloh", builds on the success of SQL Server 7.0 in the areas of scalability, availability, manageability and data warehousing, and it introduces significant new functionality focused on e-commerce. Microsoft is tightly integrating XML into the SQL Server RDBMS to help developers build the next generation of Web and enterprise applications. The next version of SQL Server, code-named "Shiloh," will be fully XML-enabled and will include a superset of the features available in the SQL Server XML Technology Preview. This technology preview enables queries to be sent directly to SQL Server 7.0 via a URL, with the results returned as XML-formatted documents.

Microsoft "Babylon" Integration Server

Microsoft’s "Babylon" Integration Server solves the problem of integrating the Windows platform with other non-Windows enterprise systems running on platforms such as IBM mainframes, AS400, and UNIX. The XML Transaction Integrator (XML-TI) is a new feature of the forthcoming "Babylon" integration server that enables customers to easily integrate and commerce-enable their existing enterprise applications via XML. XML-TI provides an XML interface to COMTI components and consists of a runtime proxy and a component builder that generates an XML document interface for executing legacy CICS and IMS transactions. This allows developers to easily invoke transactions on a host with XML without having to change any existing host code or write any new code. XML-formatted documents and messages, including BizTalk-compatible schema and BizTalk Server–routed messages, can initiate transactions. This feature is extremely useful for e-commerce–enabling existing business processes. In addition, a Babylon SDK will provide the ability to create XML-TI components for other legacy transaction environments.

Microsoft BizTalk Server

Microsoft BizTalk Server provides the tools and infrastructure that companies require to interchange business documents among various platforms and operating systems regardless of the application being used to process the documents. Companies can easily exchange documents between applications within their own organization. BizTalk Server also provides a standard gateway for sending and receiving documents via the Internet, which allows companies to interchange documents with external trading partners. By taking advantage of Microsoft BizTalk-compatible schemas, which are a framework based on XML schemas that follow industry standards, BizTalk Server enables organizations to effectively and efficiently conduct business online. This solution does more than help businesses use their existing systems to find customers and partners on the Internet or to sell them goods; it makes establishing long-term trading relationships easy and beneficial to a company’s bottom line.

Microsoft Commerce Server 4.0

The follow-on release to the leading Site Server 3.0 Commerce Edition, Microsoft Commerce Server 4.0 will greatly simplify the process of building sophisticated, customer-centric Internet and extranet selling sites. For integration with legacy environments within the organization and for application integration across the value chain, Commerce Server provides seamless integration with both BizTalk Server and Babylon. Businesses will be able to leverage the ubiquitous applicability of XML-based BizTalk schema easily from online promotions on Web marketplaces to backend interchange with customers and partners. Commerce Server will also make it easy to take advantage of the rich promotional services of MSN, including LinkExchange, to help build the online customer base more rapidly.

Microsoft Exchange 2000

Beyond supporting a multitude of other Internet standards, Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server, the premier messaging and collaboration server, also provides industry-leading support for XML. The native XML support provided by Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server is far-reaching throughout the product. Not only does Microsoft Exchange 2000 expose all of its metadata, schemas and namespaces as XML documents but any developer who knows how to publish an XML document can populate the schema, properties and metadata of Microsoft Exchange. Furthermore, as a general development platform, Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server exposes a set of asynchronous and synchronous events that publish the underlying XML data as OLEDB and ADO objects. Support for the industry standard OLEDB interfaces make it easy for database developers to use ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) to create collaborative web-based applications with Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server, while providing the power of describing data using standard XML formats.

Microsoft Visual Studio

Microsoft Visual Studio is the world's most powerful, comprehensive, and integrated suite of developer tools for rapidly building enterprise Web applications on the Windows 2000 platform based on the Windows DNA 2000 architecture. Developers can use Visual Studio 6.0 to take full advantage of Windows 2000 features such as COM+, XML, Active Directory, and Internet Information Server 5.0. The next version of Visual Studio will make it even easier to add XML support to applications as well as build and customize the next wave of Internet-based Web services. Web services represent an evolution from today's Web sites that simply deliver pages to a browser. Richer, more personalized and more proactive, these sophisticated Web services can directly link applications, services and devices with one another over the Internet. Web services are reusable, universally programmable building blocks. Web services become another piece in the assembly of solutions that can span multiple software components, business processes and applications anywhere on the Internet.

Additional Information

 

  
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