SOA architecture - XML models

The universality of XML [H 7 148] promotes its use in all technical fields relating to information management. Since its standardization by the W3C in 1998, XML has been used in all areas of information systems architecture:

• data modelling, classification and storage ;

• data communication between applications and services, and between applications and users ;

• transformation and, more generally, data processing.

In each of these areas, the last few years have seen the development of a host of XML-derived standards and protocols to facilitate the accomplishment of specific functions within a company's information system. These developments have been the subject of standardization work, either within ad hoc international standardization bodies such as ISO, W3C and OASIS, or in industrial alliances - sometimes opportunistic - between major players in the IT industry, bringing together suppliers and users.

This coherent set of standards and specifications has become essential in the implementation and deployment of Web applications based on service-oriented architecture, or SOA, which is rapidly establishing itself as the benchmark for enterprise computing applications deployed on the Web.