If extensible markup language (XML) is not already a part of your strategic considerations for enterprise IT, there are important reasons why it should be. XML is an established contender in three areas of enterprise technology: Web-enabled applications, enterprise application integration (EAI), and electronic data interchange (EDI).

XML technology supports Web-enabled and EAI solutions, whereas it seeks to supplement, or in some cases supplant, EDI. And it would be a rare CIO or CTO who is not planning for or currently deploying one or more of these formidable weapons in the perpetual battle of business.

The strength of XML lies in its ability to define and standardize the structure of information in motion, without regard to the nature of the information repositories at the source or destination. XML structures data in a hierarchical manner, defined by means of a document type definition (DTD) or XML schema. In order to leverage XML, your developers and architects require tools that will enable them to read as well as create XML schemas and DTDs.

XML is textual in nature, and as such can be read using any simple text editor, such as the Microsoft Windows Notepad. But as you might imagine, text editors are not best suited for reading complex, tree-structured documents. Fortunately, several software tools now in the market are designed especially for XML. Tools such as XML Notepad and XML Validation tool (both from Microsoft, www.microsoft.com) are simple and useful but limited; your developers will soon find themselves needing a more powerful XML authoring tool, such as Envision XML 1.1 from Popkin Software & Systems Inc.

The Next Level of Sophistication

Envision is a graphical interface-driven tool that lets developers create basic XML constructs (elements, attributes, entities, and so on) and then drag and drop them in place to create an XML schema definition. Once created, the schema and constructs go into a data dictionary so they are available for reuse. Other Envision features include a rules checker for validation, and export and reverse-engineering of XML schemas.

A good reporting module comes with Envision, which lets you customize reports and produce them in HTML. The product documentation includes a very good tutorial that greatly eases the task of learning to use the tool.

Envision connects with the popular Merant PVCS configuration management software for version management of XML schema definitions. (See www.merant.com.) Envision currently supports DTDs and Microsoft BizTalk schemas (www.biztalk.com); additional schemas are proposed for inclusion in future releases.

Because it is still a new product, it has room to improve - particularly with respect to its drag-and-drop interface and product stability. However, XML practitioners will find this a useful tool.

Rajan Chandras (rchandra@csc.com) is a senior consultant with the New York Metro consulting offices of Computer Sciences Corp. (www.csc.com), an international e-business, IT and management consulting, and outsourcing company.