# Presentation: 776532

## Optimizing XML on Your Campus and XML Lessons Learned

**Optimizing XML on Your Campus and XML Lessons Learned**

- Melissa Kunes, Penn State University

## XML Implementation:  A University Initiative

- Projects In Use:
- Work Flow
- Act 48 Course Information Exchange with PA    Department of Education
- COD for Pell
- SEVIS Reporting

## XML Implementation:  A University Initiative

- Projects in Development:
- CRC: Commonline
- ISIR
- Federal Express Shipping Information Exchange
- Academic Transcript Information Exchange
- Various Web applications

## Step One: Identifying XML Technology to meet the institution’s programming needs

- Tamino: XML database
-  Mediator: Manages and controls the flow of XML documents
-  Entire X: Mediator Wrapper/Bridge to Mainframe database (ADAbase/Natural)

## Step Two: Training

- Software AG:
- Consulting Services
- Training Services
- Overall training
- Specific projects

## Step Three: Implementing Applications

- COD Pell:
- Before the decision making process
- Brute force/Manually created XML Parser
- Complex and time consuming changes

## Step Three: Implementing Applications

- CRC: Commonline:
- Complex file
- Currently not using Commonline
- Establishing testing partners
- Other implementation issues

## Lessons Learned

## Contact Information

-  Phone:	(814) 863-2869
-  Fax:		(814) 863-0322
-  Email:	mjk5@psu.edu

**Contact Information**

## Optimizing XML on Your Campus and XML Lessons Learned

**Optimizing XML on Your Campus and XML Lessons Learned**

- Tim Bornholtz
- Federal Student Aid

## First Impressions

- XML was an ugly duckling
- Excessively large and verbose.
- Many tags larger than the data.
- Unpredictable - variable lengths
- CPU and space hungry
- Directly opposite of what was taught in the earlier years of Data Processing – save space and CPU cycles

## Why switch to XML?

- This is an investment in the future
- As automation grows throughout the campus, more non-techies are involved
- Easier to read if you need to
- Data storage and CPU costs are getting much cheaper than human costs for time
- Multiple platforms

## Positioning for the future

- Web services
- Real-time processing
- XML is the common glue to hold everything together

## Current XML Usage on Campuses

- Hard to find large production usage of XML
- Many campuses only move to XML when mandated
- FSA - Common Record for COD
- Homeland Security – Student Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS)
- Moving to XML based course catalogs

## XML Parsers

- Big lesson learned, don’t write your own XML parser!
- Are these equivalent?
- <FirstName></FirstName> and <FirstName/>
- <Name xmlns:tns=“....”><tns:xxx>...<Name><tns:xxx xmlns:tns=“....”>...
- Must handle different character encodings
- UTF-8, UTF-16, en-us, others?

## Many campuses are looking at XML databases

- Most every major database product has the ability to return result sets as XML
- Native XML databases
- Allow storage of entire XML documents.
- Has XML document as the unit of storage like relational db has rows and tables
- Allow query and manipulation across XML documents

## What’s needed?

- Easier way to create XML documents programmatically
- Consistent standards across the whole campus
- Being addressed by PESC
- Third party vendors are very supportive of XML and the XML based standards

## Where to go from here...

- XML is just like learning a different language
- You have to just keep at it.
- Keep plugging away.
- As more people do more things in XML there will be an industry network to help

## Contact Information

- We appreciate your feedback and comments.  We can be reached at:

- Tim Bornholtz
-  Phone:	(202) 377-3465
-  Email:	tim.bornholtz@ed.gov