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Extensible Markup Language (XML)

Communication between computer systems is often difficult because different systems use different data formats for storing data. XML has become a common way of resolving this problem.

It can be desirable for the Call Center Desktop application to be able to exchange data with other applications. For example, we might want to be able to export tabular data so that it can be read into a spreadsheet application to produce a chart, or we might want to be able to read information about a group of transactions that can then be carried out as part of an overnight batch operation.

A convenient technology for exchanging information between applications is XML, which is a standard, simple, flexible way of exchanging data. The structure of the data is described in the XML document itself, and there are mechanisms for ensuring that the structure conforms to an agreed format-these are known as document type definitions (DTDs) and XML schemas (XSDs).

XML is increasingly also being used to store configuration information for applications. For example, many aspects of Java EE 5 use XML for configuration files called deployment descriptors, and WebSphere Application Server V7.0 uses XML files for storing its configuration settings.

For more information about XML, see the home of XML-the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) at:

http://www.w3.org/XML/

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