Information Technology Reference
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Fig. 1.7
Traditional EDI exchange
Electronic data interchange (EDI) is the electronic transfer of structured business
information between trading partners. The idea behind it is simple: companies have
to exchange an enormous amount of paperwork to conduct business. We replace
the paperwork with electronic files. EDI reduces administrative costs and improves
relationships between trading partners. Figure
1.7
shows the data flow diagram of a
traditional EDI operation on the Internet.
However, EDI systems are very expensive and time consuming to implement and
maintain; they are inflexible and limited to integration between trading partners.
The traditional EDI systems are seven to ten times more expensive than Internet-
based options. Besides, the Internet offers broad connectivity that links networks
around the world and offers a platform-independent means of exchanging informa-
tion. Internet technology can extend the capabilities of existing EDI systems. It is
easier to implement and maintain. This has led to a growing number of companies
to look for alternative to the EDI formats. XML (W3C, 2004) is the most attractive
alternative because it offers superior conversion features.
XML is defined as EXtensible Markup Language as developed by the World
Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation Version 1.0 as of 10/02/1998 as
a Meta-Markup Language with a set of rules for creating semantic tags used to
describe data.
To apply XML in EDI on the Internet, in Fig.
1.8
, an XML receiver transmitter
(XMLRT) system can automate the translation of relational schema and data into
the topological XML documents based on their data semantics. They are integrated
into an XML document. The translated XML document is mapped and stored into
the receiver's relational database for computing. The contribution of XMLRT ar-
chitecture is to automate the translation of schema and data through the topological
data structures of an XML document.
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