XLive: An XML Light Integration Virtual Engine

On the Internet, data are distributed on heterogeneous sources. To integrate them in a uniform view, lots of systems based on the famous mediator/wrapper architecture defined by [14] have been designed [3][12]. The data model now admitted for representing data is semi-structured data represented by the XML standard format. Thus now, as well in industry as in research, integration systems using XML-based standards have emerged [5][4]. XLive is such an integration system based on XML standards. It is the sequels of our experiences on mediation design in research project (MIROWEB [11], XML-KM) and in industry XMLMedia. The XLive prototype is designed to be a light mediation system with high modularity and extension capabilities. It is a running research vehicle designed for assessing the integration system at every stage of the process starting from sources extraction to the user interface, including query parsing and modeling, optimization and evaluation, and also benchmarking.