Re: [regrep] ebXML Registry and Workflow

["Anne Thomas Manes" <anne@manes.net>]

I beg to differ.
- Most databases can now handle arbitary content very easily. They can store
any arbitray XML as a CLOB, or they can shred an XML document and map the
various elements to a set of tables -- your choice. Most databases now also
support XPath and XQuery queries against both CLOBs and shredded data (and
even against regular relational data) -- returning results as XML.
- Many databases now provide a Web interface that supports SQL, XPath, and
XQuery queries.
- SQL has been a standard for much longer than XML. The SQL System tables
are standard metadata representations
- Most databases allow you to expose stored procedures and table function as
Web services. Table functions can also invoke Web services.
- All databases provide extremely rich, fine-grained authentication and
authorization services -- admitedly the administration process is
proprietary, but in all cases it just comes down to mapping an authetication
token to a principal and then applying the authorization rules. All database
systems support signatures as an authentication mechanism. How the mechanism
works is transparent to the user -- only the administrator has to worry
about setting it up.
- All database systems support content-based notification services -- and
they are customizable to support a variety of notification mechanisms. You
can receive your notification via IM, email, SOAP, etc.

I agree that database systems don't provide first class support for
taxonomies -- although it's pretty trivial to store a taxonomy in a
database. I generally think of taxonomies as a feature of the registry,
though, not the repository.

The big downsides to storing arbitrary data in a relational database are:
- performance of CLOB searches and shredding is generally horrendous
- A database doesn't provide version management facitlities

I tend to be rather conservative about data stores, so I would discourage
most people from storing XML metadata in a relational database. The more
pressing question is why not just store the metadata in a traditional
content management system?

Anne

----- Original Message -----
From: "Farrukh Najmi" <farrukh.najmi@sun.com>
To: "Peter Kacandes" <pkacande@adobe.com>
Cc: "Chiusano Joseph" <chiusano_joseph@bah.com>;
<regrep@lists.oasis-open.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2003 4:36 PM
Subject: Re: [regrep] ebXML Registry and Workflow


> Peter Kacandes wrote:
>
> >The other question I get is why shouldn't they just use a database?
> >
> >
> >
> Here is an initial listr of reasons why ebXML Registry is better:
>
> -Databases cannot handle arbitrary content very well
>
> -Databases do not provide a standards based web interface
>
> -Databases do not provide standards based distributed capabilities
>
> -Databases do not provided a standard metadata representation
>
> -Databases do not provided authentication based on digital signatures in
> a standard way
>
> -Databases do not provided fine grained authorization based in a
> standard way
>
> -Databases do not provide content based event notification in a standard
way
>
> -Databases do not provide first class support for taxonomies
>
> -Databases do not provide first class support for services
>
> -Databases do not provide first class support for content management
> (cataloging, validation)
>
>
>
> --
> Farrukh
>
>
>
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