XML Daily Newslink. Monday, 05 March 2007

[Robin Cover <robin@oasis-open.org>]

XML Daily Newslink. Monday, 05 March 2007
A Cover Pages Publication http://xml.coverpages.org/
Provided by OASIS http://www.oasis-open.org
Edited by Robin Cover

====================================================

This issue of XML Daily Newslink is sponsored by
IBM Corporation  http://www.ibm.com

====================================================

HEADLINES:

* DITA Version 1.1 Specification Released for Public Review
* W3C Announces Semantic Web Services (SWS) Testbed Incubator Group
* Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Meets SOA
* Novell Ships Translator for OpenXML as Fruit of Microsoft Partnership
* Avaya Talks Up Voice as a Service: New VoIP Offering Melds Voice, SOA
* Zend Goes Straight to The PHP Core
* SOA Composite Business Services: The Common Event Infrastructure (CEI)
* Conference Information Data Model for Centralized Conferencing (XCON)
* New Tools Show True Potential of Grid-Based Data Mining
* Push for Open Access to Research

----------------------------------------------------------------------

DITA Version 1.1 Specification Released for Public Review
Staff, OASIS Announcement

Members of the OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA)
Technical Committee have published a Version 1.1 Committee Draft
specification for public review. The public review period ends May 04,
2007. The DITA Version 1.1 release consists of an architectural
specification, a language specification, a set of DTDs, and an
equivalent set of Schemas. The Darwin Information Typing Architecture
(DITA) is "an XML-based, end-to-end architecture for authoring,
producing, and delivering readable information as discrete, typed
topics. It is designed to support: managing readable information;
reusing information in many different combinations and deliverables;
creating online information systems such as User Assistance (help) or
web resource; creating minimalist books for easier authoring and use.
It supports: (1) topic-oriented authoring: creating a unit of
information for a single subject, where topics can then be assembled
into help systems or books that require a particular selection and
organization of subjects; (2) information typing: identifying the type
of topic, such as task, concept, reference, example, and so on; (3)
specialization: extensibility with inheritance, which allows the
creation of new types that inherit processing rules from existing
types. For example, API documentation is a particular kind of reference
information and requires more specific rules and descriptive markup
than a generic reference type; as a result, topics from different
domains with different markup and markup rules can be built together
into one help file, Web site, or book. The DITA language reference
describes the elements that comprise the topic DTD and its initial,
information-typed descendents: concept, reference, task, and glossentry.
It also describes DITA maps DTD and its current specialization
(bookmap), as well as various topic and map based DITA domains. The
separate DITA Architectural Specification includes detailed information
about DITA specialization, when to use each topic type, how topics
and maps interact, details of complex behaviors such as conref and
conditional processing, and many other best practices for working
with DITA.

http://docs.oasis-open.org/dita/v1.1/CD01/overview/overview.html
See also DITA references: http://xml.coverpages.org/dita.html

----------------------------------------------------------------------

W3C Announces Semantic Web Services (SWS) Testbed Incubator Group
Staff, W3C Announcement

The mission of the newly formed W3C SWS Testbed Incubator Group, part
of the W3C Incubator Activity, is to develop a standard methodology
for evaluating semantic web services based upon a standard set of
problems, and develop a public repository of such problems. The SWS
Testbed Incubator Group sponsored by W3C Members Wright State University,
Stanford University, DERI University of Innsbruck, and the National
University of Galway, Ireland.  The Semantic Web Services Testbed
Incubator will benefit from interactions with technical experts in the
SWS Challenge Workshop, OASIS Semantic Execution Environment (SEE)
Technical Committee, DERI Innsbruck, and the Stanford Logic Group.
From the Charter: "The approach is to analyze the process,
infrastructure, and results of the Semantic Web Services Challenge
workshops. In particular, we hope to establish a set of standard
problems related to the use of Semantic Web Service technologies. Part
of each problem description will also be a set of Web Service Interface
Definitions (in WSDL). Along with the set of problems we develop a
methodology for automatically verifying the messages that are exchanged
in order to solve a particular problem. A reference implementation of
the infrastructure can then automatically verify a problem solution by
analysis of web service message exchanges. Additionally a peer review-
based methodology for determining the software engineering value of the
technologies used to solve the problems shall be established. The
rationale for the incubator is to standardize the evaluation of
emerging semantic web service technologies. There are many claims for
such technologies in academic workshops and conferences. However, there
is no scientific method of comparing the actual functionalities claimed.
More important, there is no way for industry to evaluate the robustness
and applicability of these technologies. Progress in scientific
development and in industrial adoption is thereby hindered. The SWS
Challenge Workshops provides a major first step toward filling these
lacunae. The workshops are an ongoing experiment in developing a
methodology for evaluating the functionality (versus performance) of
semantic web service technologies. Based upon our first year's experience
with a small group, we feel that we can now involve a larger community
in this development, with a aim to standardizing the methodology and
infrastructure.

http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/swsc/
See also the W3C Incubator Activity: http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Meets SOA
Joab Jackson, Government Computer News

The worlds of enterprise resource planning and service-oriented
architecture are coming together. Three of the major software vendors
of ERP software are moving their own platforms to ones that support
Web services. Oracle Corp. is rolling out its Fusion platform, which
updates the PeopleSoft HR software with Web services interfaces. Already,
its Fusion Middleware allows users to build their own composites, or
applications that reuse already-existing functionality in other programs,
according to Wayne Bobby, vice president for solutions for finance and
administration at Oracle Federal. Likewise, SAP AG of Waldorf, Germany,
has migrated its MySAP ERP software to a new Web services-based platform
called Netweaver. It is now exposing all the core functionality as Web
services. So far, more than 1,500 functions are available. "We are
going to expose every single element of our solution as a Web service,"
said David Ditzel, director of public services technology solutions for
the company. In a similar move, CGI Inc. of Montreal has migrated its
federal ERP software, called Momentum, to a Java 2 Enterprise Edition-
based platform, allowing developers to easily hook their own J2EE
applications into CGI's software. Michael Grim, head of public services
business development for SAP, noted that SAP has long published the
interfaces to its software under the name of Business Application
Programming Interfaces, or BAPI. It also has offered a Cobol-like
programming language, called Advanced Business Application Programming.
What is new is that the company is using industry standards. Grim
admits the old interfaces were 'SAP-centric.' Using Netweaver, an
organization could work with the SAP software through Web services and
the Java programming language, capabilities that are more broadly
available. So a process such as combining Adobe's PDF support software
and MySAP has grown dramatically easier, Ditzel claimed. Oracle offers
a similar approach with its Fusion Middleware, allowing customers to
build unique applications by using Web services and J2EE specifications.
Such a composite-based approach is the basis for SOA. Last summer,
OASIS formally defined the concept in its SOA Reference Model as 'a
paradigm for organizing and utilizing distributed capabilities that
may be under the control of different ownership domains.'

http://www.gcn.com/print/26_05/43228-1.html

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Novell Ships Translator for OpenXML as Fruit of Microsoft Partnership
John Fontana, Network World.com

Amid the simmering debate over open file formats, Novell has released
a translator [OpenOffice.org OpenXML Translator] that lets users open
and save Microsoft's OpenXML files (.docx) in versions of the
OpenOffice.org word processing program. Novell's translator tool follows
two similar tools introduced last month by Sun and by a group funded by
Microsoft that developed an open-source translator. Novell's translator
is the first by-product of its wide ranging technology partnership
signed with Microsoft in November. The pair promised to develop
translators to make it easier to work with OpenXML and the Open Document
Format (ODF). Besides the word processing translator, others for
presentation and spreadsheets are in the works. OpenXML translator
provides support for opening and saving Microsoft Open XML-formatted
word processing documents in OpenOffice.org. OpenXML is the default
format in Office 2007 and ODF is supported by OpenOffice.org, Novell
includes their version of OpenOffice in their Suse Linux Enterprise
Desktop 10. The Novell Translator requires one of four version of
OpenOffice.org: Version 2.0.4 or later of the Novell edition for Windows,
version 2.0.4 or later for SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 and openSUSE
10.1, OpenOffice.org 2.0 package for SUSE Linux 9.3 and 10.0, and
OpenOffice.org 2.0.4 package for openSUSE 10.2... Microsoft is working
hard to back interoperability. The open-source translator developed
by engineers funded by Microsoft was posted last month on the open-
source site SourceForge under an open source Berkeley Software
Distribution (BSD) license. But ODF backers are also working hard to
ensure users can work with both document formats. Last month, Sun
released the StarOffice 8 Conversion Technology Preview, a plug-in
for Microsoft Word 2003.

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/030507-novell-translator.html
See also the download page: http://www.novell.com/documentation/openwg/esd/di_ooo_openxml_translator.html:

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Avaya Talks Up Voice as a Service: New VoIP Offering Melds Voice, SOA
Eric Knorr, InfoWorld

The great thing about SOA is that when you add a service, you instantly
increase the potential of any application that can consume that service.
Today, Avaya threw a new set of VoIP services into the enterprise SOA
mix in the form of its CEBP (Communications Enabled Business Processes)
solution. For most enterprises, the benefits of VoIP have been limited
to the cost savings of retiring legacy phone systems and the added
productivity of a few voice/data applications -- almost exclusively for
call centers. CEBP exposes an array of voice communications features
as Web services, which can be called upon by any number of applications
from IT operations to supply chain management. Avaya sees CEBP as a
way for enterprises to optimize business processes and respond swiftly
to events. For example, based on certain criteria, a temporary
interruption at a manufacturing plant might cause SAP R/3 to ping CEBP,
which would send an automated advisory message with a return receipt to
the appropriate manager via phone, e-mail, or SMS. In the event of a
total meltdown, the Notify & Conference feature could be invoked,
initiating voice calls to a preset list of people and dropping them all
into an emergency conference call. In other instances, CEBP could merely
ensure that composite workflow applications, oft cited as a big payoff
of SOA, aren't stopped in their tracks by people who aren't sitting at
a computer and can't respond promptly. Avaya is not the first vendor to
provide a Web services platform for voice communications capabilities.
Last September, BlueNote Networks introduced its SessionSuite SOA
Edition, designed to enable developers to embed telephony capabilities
in a range of applications. But Avaya's large customer base and
professional services group could help jump start the use of voice-based
Web services.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/03/05/HNavayavoicecon_1.html

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Zend Goes Straight to The PHP Core
Sean Michael Kerner, InternetNews.com

For more than a decade, PHP developers have had little choice in where
they actually get the latest version of PHP: either PHP.net or as a
package from a Linux distribution. Zend, the commercial backer of PHP,
is now offering another choice. Zend Core 2.0, the first Zend Core
release for the broader PHP community, is a PHP distribution that
benefits from additional testing, bundled features, applications and
support that also includes an update service. And though it extends PHP
in a number of ways, it's still open source. "Zend Core is our version
of PHP; it's a PHP distribution and it's best to look at it as related
to PHP as how Red Hat Linux is related to Linux," according to Mark de
Visser, Zend chief marketing officer. "Yes you can get these things
yourself from the various open source sources, but it's more convenient
and there are benefits to get it from Zend where we assemble the whole
stack for you." Zend Core 2.0 includes the latest PHP 5.2.1 version,
which benefits from the joint work between Zend and Microsoft to improve
PHP on Microsoft Windows. PHP 5.2.1 was officially released by the
PHP.net open source community on Feb. 8. Zend had previously offered
versions of Zend Core specifically for Oracle and IBM DB2. Additionally,
Zend Core 2.0 includes MySQL 5.0, which makes PHP-enabling the open
source database easier than if PHP and MySQL were to be installed
separately.

http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3663611
See also Zend Core: http://www.zend.com/products/zend_core/what_s_new

----------------------------------------------------------------------

SOA Composite Business Services: The Common Event Infrastructure (CEI)
Javier Garcia, DuoWei Sun, Zhi Gan; IBM developerWorks

This article is the fourth in a series that considers the development
of composite applications to enable business services. In order to
determine if a composite application is meeting the stated business
goals, the application needs to be measurable. This article examines
how to develop measurable composite applications with the help of three
reusable artifacts that are based on the Common Event Infrastructure.
It describes the role of business-level events and presents three
artifacts you can use to generate, query, and view business-level events
in the context of a composite application. With the help of these
reusable artifacts, your composite application can be measurable, thus
laying the groundwork for improving the entire business process. CEI
processes Common Base Events (CBEs) as defined by the CBE specifications.
CEI provides a standard XML-based format for events, which enables
generic mechanisms to both log and query events. Built-in support for
CEI in WebSphere Integration Developer generates CBE events. For
example, you can select a Business Process Execution Language (BPEL)
activity and then select activity-started or activity-stopped events,
which automatically generate CBEs. However, you might need to generate
business-level events that do not correspond to WebSphere Integration
Developer events. You can use the Business Process Engine (BPE) API
for this. However, because this API exposes the CBE format as well as
other CEI-specific attributes, the relevant parts of the API are
contained in an easy-to-use set of artifacts that support logging,
querying, and viewing events.

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-soa-composite4/index.html

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Conference Information Data Model for Centralized Conferencing (XCON)
O. Novo, G. Camarillo (et al., eds), IETF Internet Drafts

Members of the IETF Centralized Conferencing (XCON) Working Group have
released a level -04 version of the "Conference Information Data Model
for Centralized Conferencing (XCON)" specification. Conference objects
are a fundamental concept in Centralized conferencing, as described in
the XCON Conferencing Framework specification. A conference object
contains data that represents a conference during each of its various
stages (e.g., reserved, started, running, ended, etc.). A conference
object contains the core information of a conference (i.e., capabilities,
membership, roles, call control signaling, media, etc.) and specifies
who, and in which way, can manipulate that information. Conference
Objects are instantiations of the conference information data model
defined in this document. This document defines an Extensible Markup
Language (XML)-based conference information data model for centralized
conferencing (XCON). A conference object, which can be manipulated using
a conference control protocol, at a conference server represents a
particular instantiation of this data model. The conference information
data model defined in this document is an extension of (and thus,
compatible with) the model specified in the Session Initiation Protocol
(SIP) Event Package for Conference State. In accordance with the XCON
framework document, the Conference Object is a logical representation of
a conference instance. The conference information schema contains core
information that is utilized in any conference. It also contains the
variable information part of the Conference Object. This specification
defines some document fragments in RELAX NG format. An XML-encoded
example is provided for a conference information document. The IETF XCON
working group was chartered to develop a standardized suite of protocols
for tightly-coupled multimedia conferences, where strong security and
authorization requirements are integral to the solution. Tightly-coupled
conferences have a central point of control and authorization (known as
a focus) so they can enforce specific media and membership relationships,
and provide an accurate roster of participants. The media mixing or
combining function of a tightly-coupled conference need not be performed
centrally, however. This effort is intended to enable interoperability
in a commercial environment which already has a number of non-standard
implementations using some of the protocols.

http://xml.coverpages.org/draft-ietf-xcon-common-data-model-04.txt
See also the WG Charter: http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/xcon-charter.html

----------------------------------------------------------------------

New Tools Show True Potential of Grid-Based Data Mining
Staff, DataMiningGrid Project

Developers announced the release of DataMiningGrid Version 1.0 beta as
of March 3, 2007.  It provides WSRF-compliant tools and services for
data mining in grid computing environments, based on Globus Toolkit 4,
Condor, and Triana.  The distribution is available from SourceForge.
The partners in this effort were the University of Ulster (United
Kingdom), University of Ljubljana (Slovenia), the Technion (Israel),
Fraunhofer Institute (Germany) and automobile company DaimlerChrysler.
The release a general purpose software facilitating user-friendly,
Grid-based data mining, which can only be used in connection to Globus
toolkit version 4, Condor (optional) local scheduler, and Triana
Workflow Editor and Manager. The real power of Grid computing lies in
sharing resources across a network. These can be CPU cycles, storage,
peripherals, network bandwidth, data and software. Ultimately, this
will lead to the grand goal envisioned by Grid researchers in which
grid users will be able to seamlessly access and harness geographically
widely distributed computing resources as if they were using a local
system. By using a series of mature or near mature tools to manage
issues like scheduling, workflow management, and data access and
integration, DataMiningGrid does not reinvent the wheel and focuses on
the core problem: extracting relevant information from vast data sets
across a grid... "The Data Mining Tools and Services for Grid Computing
Environments (DataMiningGrid) Consortium is developing tools and
services for deploying data mining applications on the grid. Future and
emerging complex problem-solving environments are characterised by
increasing amounts of digital data and rising demands for coordinated
resource sharing across geographically dispersed sites. Next generation
grid technologies are promising to provide the necessary infrastructure
facilitating seamless sharing of computing resources. Currently there
exists no coherent framework for developing and deploying data mining
applications on the grid. The DataMiningGrid project addreses this gap
by developing generic and sector-independent data-mining tools and
services for the grid. The DataMiningGrid project was formed as a shared
cost Strategic Targeted Research Project (STREP) granted by the European
Commission (grant no. IST-2004-004475), and part of the Sixth Framework
Programme of the Information Society Technologies Programme (IST)."

http://sourceforge.net/projects/datamininggrid/
See also the announcement: http://www.gridtoday.com/grid/1300119.html

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Push for Open Access to Research
Michael Geist, BBC News

In this article, Internet law professor Michael Geist takes a look at
a fundamental shift in the way research journals become available to
the public.  Last month five leading European research institutions
launched a petition that called on the European Commission to establish
a new policy that would require all government-funded research to be
made available to the public shortly after publication. That requirement
-- called an open access principle -- would leverage widespread internet
connectivity with low-cost electronic publication to create a freely
available virtual scientific library available to the entire globe.
Despite scant media attention, word of the petition spread quickly
throughout the scientific and research communities. Within weeks, it
garnered more than 20,000 signatures, including several Nobel prize
winners and 750 education, research, and cultural organisations from
around the world. In response, the European Commission committed more
than 51 million euros towards facilitating greater open access through
support for open access journals and for the building of the
infrastructure needed to house institutional repositories that can
store the millions of academic articles written each year. The European
developments demonstrate the growing global demand for open access, a
trend that is forcing researchers, publishers, universities, and funding
agencies to reconsider their role in the creation and dissemination of
knowledge. In many countries, government funding agencies in the
sciences, social sciences, and health sciences dole out hundreds of
millions of dollars each year to support research at national
universities. University researchers typically published their findings
in expensive, peer-reviewed publications, which were purchased by those
same publicly-funded universities. The model certainly proved lucrative
for large publishers, yet resulted in the public paying twice for
research that it was frequently unable to access. The Directory of Open
Access Journals, a Swedish project that links to open access journals
in all disciplines, currently lists more than 2,500 open access journals
worldwide featuring a library in excess of 127,000 articles. Moreover,
the cost of establishing an open access journal has dropped significantly.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6404429.stm

----------------------------------------------------------------------

XML Daily Newslink and Cover Pages are sponsored by:

BEA Systems, Inc.         http://www.bea.com
IBM Corporation           http://www.ibm.com
Innodata Isogen           http://www.innodata-isogen.com
SAP AG                    http://www.sap.com
Sun Microsystems, Inc.    http://sun.com

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsletter subscribe: xml-dailynews-subscribe@lists.xml.org
Newsletter unsubscribe: xml-dailynews-unsubscribe@lists.xml.org
Newsletter help: xml-dailynews-help@lists.xml.org
Cover Pages: http://xml.coverpages.org/

----------------------------------------------------------------------