California Legislative Data Center: Using XML DB to Manage Legislative Authoring
Another case study, this time from the California Legislative Data Center. This group manage the database which holds on record all state law ever passed in the state of California. This system is the source used, amongst other things, for generating the state budget, which is clearly a very high profile task.
They identified their reasons for opting for an XML DB solution; firstly, at the time they were looking in the late 1990s, XML DB was considered to be lead the field in XML centric data (and it remains so now). Secondly, they considered Oracle to be an inherently safe choice. They are keen to have a system that conforms to open standards and will remain current for many years. By choosing Oracle, they knew they had the option of using the well-established CLOB data type if the XML DB option didn't fly.
California LDC are one of the less common type of users of XML DB who are actually persisting data storage in XML. Most applications of the technology use XML around the fringes of the system to interface to other systems. For instance, file transfer, web page creation etc.
Rather than use numerous XML schema, they have opted to create one uber-schema, containing definitions for all their documents in one.
XML seems to be an ideal data storage technique for this organisation, as they have to deal with large documents which change in only discrete parts over time. Some of the legal documents are so large that they cannot be easily loaded into an editor at one time, so being able to access portions of those documents is very useful.
Nipun Agarwal identified some of the situations where Binary XML storage would be useful:
Details of the XML DB beta program, along with a list of this and other new features can be found here
They identified their reasons for opting for an XML DB solution; firstly, at the time they were looking in the late 1990s, XML DB was considered to be lead the field in XML centric data (and it remains so now). Secondly, they considered Oracle to be an inherently safe choice. They are keen to have a system that conforms to open standards and will remain current for many years. By choosing Oracle, they knew they had the option of using the well-established CLOB data type if the XML DB option didn't fly.
California LDC are one of the less common type of users of XML DB who are actually persisting data storage in XML. Most applications of the technology use XML around the fringes of the system to interface to other systems. For instance, file transfer, web page creation etc.
Rather than use numerous XML schema, they have opted to create one uber-schema, containing definitions for all their documents in one.
XML seems to be an ideal data storage technique for this organisation, as they have to deal with large documents which change in only discrete parts over time. Some of the legal documents are so large that they cannot be easily loaded into an editor at one time, so being able to access portions of those documents is very useful.
Nipun Agarwal identified some of the situations where Binary XML storage would be useful:
- When the schema is not known in advance
- When the schema is known in advance but is so complex that the number of tables it would generate is too high.
- When the application is document centric and demands flexible data structures.
Details of the XML DB beta program, along with a list of this and other new features can be found here
posted by Henry at 1:16 PM
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