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   RE: [xml-dev] U.S. Federal Goverment's Data Reference Model (DRM) XML Sc

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Mike,
 
Good thoughts - we have not specified a method for deriving messages from business objects. That is, the translation of business objects to message definitions is not "natively" specified/supported by the DRM (as is, for example, the specification of data assets and their properties) - however, it is facilitated by the DRMThis type of capability may be supported by a product such as a registry product, enterprise service bus (ESB) or integration broker (I've noted more discussion in this thread on this aspect).
 
We may, however, include one or more use cases as part of the DRM that help federal agencies and other users of the DRM understand how this capability can be leveraged. One use case that has already created and presented to the DRM Working Group involves the use of the DRM to facilitate the "database forward engineering" process (construction of relational databases from data models, such as logical data models) - this can certainly be extended to address how the DRM can facilitate the construction of messages from data models. However, this is sometimes challenging, as most transactions take the form of verbs while most data elements take the form of nouns.
 

So, currently the DRM supports identifying the exchanges and referencing the data elements that are part of the exchange (part of the payload).  Our goal for the DRM in this is that an organization receives the ability to determine if a pre-existing exchange is of value to them.

 

Regarding the problem you cite below on overly mandatory requirements: One elegant approach to this is the approach that has been taken by the Global Justice XML Data Model (GJXDM) schemas. Ithis approach, a base ("conformance") schema exists with high optionality, and "constraint" schemas are constructed by users (i.e. those that need to produce schemas from the conformance schema) to further constrain/restrict the constructs in the conformance schema, within certain prescribed boundaries (i.e. constraint schema must represent a valid subset of the conformance schema).

 

Hope that helps--

Joe

 
Joseph Chiusano
Booz Allen Hamilton
Visit us online@ http://www.boozallen.com
 


From: Michael Kay [mailto:mike@saxonica.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2005 4:11 PM
To: Chiusano Joseph; xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Subject: RE: [xml-dev] U.S. Federal Goverment's Data Reference Model (DRM) XML Schema

I'm interested in how you tackle the problem of translating from business object definitions into message definitions. I'm working with an organization that has designed schemas to represent its (many hundreds of) business objects, and is now struggling with the question of how to design messages for application data interchange that are based on these object definitions. The problem is that messages exchange information about a business object, and different messages exchange different subsets of the information. Making all the information mandatory and thereby forcing the sending application to populate the message with data that the recipient doesn't want to know seems unproductive; equally, making all the data optional seems to defeat the purpose of validation. So it seems that one needs a message definition (=type) for each message that is somehow related to the schema for the business object, but isn't related to it by one of the recognized mechanisms of restriction and extension. It needs some kind of concept of being "derived by projection". 
Any thoughts or advice?
 
Michael Kay

From: Chiusano Joseph [mailto:chiusano_joseph@bah.com]
Sent: 21 June 2005 19:30
To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Subject: [xml-dev] U.S. Federal Goverment's Data Reference Model (DRM) XML Schema

The XML Cover pages just announced[1] the availability of a draft XML schema[2] for the U.S. Federal Goverment's Data Reference Model (DRM) initiative. I am posting this here to invite comments from the broad XML community as to our approaches for this initiative. A specification for the DRM XML Schema is at [4] (includes all elements/attributes, their definition, and hyperlinks for efficient navigation).
 
I presented[3] on this schema at last week's First Quarterly DRM Public Forum along with Mike Daconta (U.S. Department of Homeland Security Metadata Program Manager), who is leading this vast interagency effort. We discussed the design factors that we took into account regarding the schema, use of existing open standards, and other aspects.
 
If you have comments or questions, please feel free to (a) submit them per the instructions in [1], (b) express them directly to me, or (c) express them here on the XML-DEV listserv.
 
Thanks,
Joe
 
(Announcement)
(DRM XML Schema)
(Presentation on DRM XML Schema)
(DRM XML Schema Specification]
 
Joseph Chiusano
Booz Allen Hamilton
Visit us online@ http://www.boozallen.com
 




 

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