5.5 Conclusion

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IBM offers a variety of current XML data products and approaches as well as an encompassing vision of the future for XML data management. Users familiar with SQL and standard relational database application development who need to quickly generate XML fragments can make use of engine-level support that resembles their current tool set and leverages current knowledge. Developers who require the creation of complete XML documents from existing relational data, or who wish to directly load entire XML documents or shred them into relational tables, will find the function they require along with support for common APIs, validation calls, and transformation support. Functional support for XML operations in a database is just one part of the story: Web service application development tools as well as scalable document content management are all available now.

As for the future, the vision is to deliver overall XML data store and data management capabilities at a level equivalent to existing relational data product offerings. The new XML function will be accompanied by additional work in federated information access, increasing support for unstructured data, and a continuing higher-level focus on solving information integration issues.


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Part IV: Applications of XML