- From: Light, Michael <mlight@state.pa.us>
- Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 18:29:50 -0500
- To: "'www-xml-schema-comments@w3.org'" <www-xml-schema-comments@w3.org>
To the WC3 community, Our organization is looking at clarification when defining XML schemas. Our support database structure is comprised of 4 different database management systems; 2 Unisys mainframe legacy database architectures DMS the other RDMS, Microsoft Sql 2000, and finally Oracle 8i. 85% of our business resides within the Unisys DMS/RDMS data management systems. Is there a best practice rule defining XML schemas built to represent data formats of the legacy systems? Or are we to embrace data formats of the new technology and build transformation services? In example, our DMS / RDMS legacy systems have character data and numeric formats. It has been our practice to use numeric values for fields even if they were not computational. Examples would be zip code numeric 5 zip code extended numeric 4. Provider number numeric 10, client number numeric 10. These values would be compressed via Unisys definitions to save space. There is a move by some within our organization to create a blanket statement "All non-computational data be character in XML schema definitions". I do not disagree with motives to generalize, however; I find this would place a large workload on business rules to validate all data. My thoughts are, a well defined schema could be used to express our interface to our business partners and resolve integration issues to the legacy data management systems. This will not take the place of validation rules, however it may expose an understanding of our legacy systems to those less familiar. My staff are responsible for data integration through the use of middleware products. Your response will help us prepare for our role in this technology. Your thoughts on this subject would be greatly appreciated, Michael E. Light Application Support Division, Bureau of Application Development & Delivery Office of Information Systems, PA Dept. of Public Welfare Phone: (717) 772-7941 Email: mlight@state.pa.us
Received on Thursday, 29 November 2001 18:29:28 UTC