Situation

Where structured information is concerned, the fundamental tenets behind relational data and XML are very similar. It is due to the inherent structures of both these forms of content that makes transformation from one to the other consistently accurate and efficient. Newbook has been called upon by many customers from various industry sectors to solve the recurring business requirements of organizations that are looking to exploit their vast reserves of relational content and take advantage of the rapid, multi-lingual, multi-channel dissemination of this critical information via XML.

Challenge

In many cases, relational content is of both a statistical and textual nature. Repeatedly, it is the customer’s wish to merge information from numerous fields within the relational model into single information objects that can then be published in various mediums and in numerous languages.

However, before collecting and assembling all of this disparate content and serving it up for human consumption, editorial staff must first see a ‘composed view’ of the information for quality assurance purposes. In addition, they must have the ability to preview their changes to the database content, in real time, as it exists at any given moment.

Often the textual portions within the relational schema are significant and numerous, to the point that managing these strings as relational objects, and using standard database client software is no longer viable. While wanting to retain the data security benefits of an RDBMS, customers are continually searching for ways to optimally create and update textual content in a more effective and efficient manner.

Solution

In response to its many customers who wish to take full advantage of the benefits of an RDBMS and the power of XML, Newbook has developed a reusable Solution Framework based on XML and Oracle’s SDK/XDK developer toolkits. This framework is flexible, adaptable and can respond to many business challenges. True to form, as a Newbook offering, the accent is on scaleable, open-source technologies. A typical framework solution includes:

• A light-weight, performant Web-based environment, that provides reliable, user-friendly direct connectivity to the database content;
• A rules-based XML data model that ensures content consistency throughout the business cycle;
• Extraction routines that pull and aggregate diverse content from across the relational model;
• HTML transformation routines that allow users to view the extracted database content in real-time via a Web browser;
• Publishing and Data Delivery assembly routines that can assemble all the publishing objects into a single XML file for print and/or CD-ROM production or assemble selected portions of final XML for data delivery;
• An online delivery capability that can incorporate search functions and assorted navigators, as well as a PDF-based print-on-demand facility.

Benefits

This Newbook offering transforms traditional relational databases into powerful, dynamic publishing platforms. It accelerates the revision cycle and ensures 100% content accuracy. Information is federated from across the database schema, be it relational, XML, or graphical and consistently publishes this content as rich, value-added objects. This powerful framework helps organizations to be a step ahead of the competition and lets them meet the constant demands for timely, pertinent content with confidence. Additional content can be easily and rapidly incorporated into the solution, regardless of language or desired form of published output (Web, print, or CD-ROM.)