Since the mid-1990s,Extensible Markup Language (XML)has
been used for a variety of computing applications, including
finance, health care and application integration. XML-aware
applications have also been used in professional publishing for
more than 10 years, writes
Rita Knox, research vice-president at analyst firm
Gartner.
Given XML's derivation from Standard Generalised Markup Language
(SGML), publishing applications seemed to be its most obvious use.
Although many XML-based publishing products were released, there
was little interest or adoption beyond for-profit publishing.
Component-based publishing
That picture is changing as enterprises expand their
understanding and use of component-based publishing processes.
Collaboration between technical architects and business unit
managers will yield the greatest results because computing
resources and content production activities are aligned with a
common focus, from planning to use.
Component-based publishing is an approach to creating and
delivering content that is based on managing granules of content
rather than complete assemblies, such as documents. Component-based
publishing is used for internally-facing documentation, such as
policies and procedures, as well as publicly delivered information,
such as product documentation or insurance policies, which are
often longer and more complex than office documents. The component
focus also enables much greater flexibility to mix and match
information for different audiences and modes of communication.
Customer-facing application
For example, it is common these days to "build" and price a car
online. Although the body-type descriptions are unique, different
models have the same choice of engines (such as V6 or V8) and
colours. The common content (such as colour descriptions) is
maintained and reused to create a final description of the
custom-built car, whether it is accessible online or printed on
demand. In essence, users are "publishing" their own cars.
If users can publish their own cars, they may now expect that
they should also be able to publish books or other content
aggregations, which are presumably more flexible structures than a
motor vehicle.
Component-based publishing consists of functions that cover the
content production lifecycle. These functions depend on XML to
define content components, as well as the model for how that
content is to be aggregated.
XML in the office
Standard office applications can support XML-aware processing.
The International Organisation for Standardisation's approval of
the Open Document Format for Office Applications, as well as Ecma
International's approval of Office Open XML make XML document
formats a safe investment.
Companies such as Microsoft, IBM and Sun use the standards for
their office productivity applications. Enterprises, and
particularly government organisations, are becoming insistent that
documents be defined with XML and, in some cases, making the format
standards required schema.
The availability of
XML document format standards and product growth, the
integration of XML with productivity tools, publicity, as well as
enterprise and client requirements all drive a greater awareness of
XML publishing options and simplify its adoption.
Enterprise content management: using XML for best
practice
● Ensure longevity: industry regulators and businesses want a
non-proprietary content representation that can be processed for
the life of the document, which may have no retirement date.
● Ensure content consistency (for documents, communications,
press releases etc), regardless of location or language. Document
models can indicate which content parts may vary (for example,
because of jurisdictions having different legal requirements), and
minimise unnecessary variations and their attendant costs. These
can also be used to manage contracted services, such as
translation.
● Maximise the reuse of content and reduce the duplication of
effort. Common models and granular information components support
document processes that can be created once and used many
times.
● Protect your brand by having a pool of established content
components and output formats that all enterprises use to publish
content, such as legal disclaimers, product summaries and the
company logo.
● Ensure security. Enterprises may wish to show different
segments of documents to different users. In some cases, a
subsection may be pre-defined as off-limits to a class or group of
workers.
● Ensure information governance. Obtaining control of content at
the time of creation allows users to embed review dates, retention
information and deletion information. These control the timing of
content lifecycle events. By using workflow, users can set flags
that will enable content to flow through a business process, to be
archived and to be deleted as defined by records management
policies.
● Drive process automation. Rich XML meta data, which exposes
more information about the content, can help automate the movement
of that content through workflows. Allowing the meta data to be
acted on by rule-based workflow tools can take human labour out of
a process.
XML security learning guide >>