Data flow based system design techniques have taken a back seat over the last twenty years thanks to the growth in popularity of object

oriented design. XML has emerged in the last few years as a lingua franca for structured data flow. Web Services are emerging as a lingua franca for atomic function description, discovery and invocation.

Taken together, XML and Web Services create a fertile ground for the

re-emergence of data flow based - rather than object oriented system

design.

In this presentation, an XML/Web Services based approach to data flow

design is presented. Particular emphasis will be given to showing how

on-the-fly XML transformation and routing trumps re-visiting object

interfaces when creating true interoperable, flexible system

infrastructures.

Examples will be presented showing how this approach has been

implemented in telecommunications and e-Government scenarios.

Finally, an architecture for a highly scaleable XML transformation

technology known as XPipe (http://xpipe.sourceforge.net) will be

discussed including a proposal for a Java based XML transformation

component technology known as XComponent. A sketch of a grid

technology implementation of an XML transformation server based on the

XPipe approach will be presented.