An XML model for use across heterogeneous client-server applications

Applications that use directory services or relational databases operate in a client–server model, where a client requests information from a server, and the server returns a response to the client. These client–server applications typically have a specific message protocol that is unique to that application. Systems with multiple client–server applications require that there are separate client programs that individually communicate with their respective server programs. A need exists to access information from heterogeneous systems in a standard message request–response format. A generic eXtensible Markup Language (XML) model was developed to obtain data from diverse measurement systems. The objective of this paper is to describe the XML model that abstracts the differences in the underlying heterogeneous client–server message formats and provides a common XML message interface. The XML messages are parsed through a common XML gateway that decides to which application server to forward the messages. The generic XML messages are translated to the correct application server format before being sent to the application server.