[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: [Updated] A Categorization of Data Interoperability Proble
Roger, This is very helpful - thanks. I was recently asked by a colleague to advise them on the "Different Format" problem. The issue involved a very large U.S. Federal Agency with multiple sub-agencies, and the need to collect measurements that may be of different units due to how each sub-agency represents those measurements. The data is being submitted to a central "hub" for intergration into a portal. Each measurement is required to be represented in a single common unit for that "category" of item, or item itself (the units per item/category will be determined at some point in the near future). All data will be sent in XML format. [I'd like to stress that this information only represents a conversation between myself and a colleague at my company, and doesn't represent the direction that any U.S. federal agency/sub-agency is currently taking.] So the question was: Where should the unit conversion take place in the process of transmitting to the central hub? We discussed several approach (in a brainstorming way, without regard to the feasibility of each approach): (1) Require all senders to provide measurements in "standard" (i.e. agreed-upon) units. So this places the "conversion burden" on the sender. (2) All senders can provide measurements in "their" units, and they must specify the units for each value in the transmitted XML documents. Conversion burden is on the receiver. More on (1): We discussed how it would be best that a unit is provided in the transmitted XML document for each value (even though they would be "standard") so there is no ambiguity, and so that any process downstream (such as an XSLT transformation) has this information. More on (2): We talked about the possibility of a "conversion gateway" that would perform the necessary conversions before the ultimate receiver receives the data. This "gateway" need not be a separate server (i.e. hardware configuration is transparent for our purposes here) - it could simply be a conversion program on the server that receives the transmissions. I believe that OWL could play a role here. We spoke of this "conversion gateway" being a permanent solution, or a temporary solution while the sub-agencies update their systems to accomodate the "standard" units of measurement. Kind Regards, Joe Chiusano Booz | Allen | Hamilton "Roger L. Costello" wrote: > > Hi Folks, > > A while back I started on categorizing data interoperability problems. > I have updated it. Here is the URL: > > http://www.xfront.com/DataInteroperabilityCategorization.html > > /Roger > > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > The xml-dev list is sponsored by XML.org <http://www.xml.org>, an > initiative of OASIS <http://www.oasis-open.org> > > The list archives are at http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/ > > To subscribe or unsubscribe from this list use the subscription > manager: <http://lists.xml.org/ob/adm.pl> begin:vcard n:Chiusano;Joseph tel;work:(703) 902-6923 x-mozilla-html:FALSE url:www.bah.com org:Booz | Allen | Hamilton;IT Digital Strategies Team adr:;;8283 Greensboro Drive;McLean;VA;22012; version:2.1 email;internet:chiusano_joseph@b... title:Senior Consultant fn:Joseph M. Chiusano end:vcard
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