Open Metadata Formats: Efficient XML-Based Communication for Heterogeneous Distributed Systems

Abstract

Definition and translation of metadata is incorporated in all systems that exchange structured data. We observe that the manipulation of his metadata can be decomposed into three separate steps: discovery of the metadata, binding of program objects to the message formats represented in the metadata, and marshaling of data to and from wire formats using the metadata. We have designed a method of representing message formats in XML, using datatypes available in the XML Schema specification. We have implemented a tool, xml2wire, that uses such metadata and exploits this decomposition in order to provide flexible metadata definition facilities for an efficient binary communications mechanism. We also observe that the use of xml2wire makes possible such flexibility without intolerable performance effects.