During 2002, the IT world has sharpened its focus on the competition building in the database market between Oracle, IBM and Microsoft as these relational database vendors begin to ramp-up their XML capabilities. However, with the industry giants entering the XML database space, the industry has largely failed to consider the firmly established presence of native XML databases. While the native XML players are not all household names, the maturity of these products warrants further investigation. The industry needs to examine specifically what native XML databases offer that the relational vendors are trying to emulate and how the two systems can complement each other. Additionally, the recent push by relational vendors to incorporate XML data management capabilities renews the question of how to effectively harness the power of XML.

In order to remain competitive in today's market, businesses need to implement solutions that provide them with the agility to adapt and react to a full spectrum of business challenges without compromising performance. From a data management perspective, XML databases are uniquely positioned to deliver on the promise of flexible, extensible operational data stores that integrate a diverse variety of IT systems.

As a powerful cross-platform language, XML is an ideal format for representing data that resists the rigid structures of traditional systems and requires constant changing and augmentation. But XML data is only useful if it can be stored, retrieved and transformed quickly and in a fault-tolerant manner. Native XML databases provides this agility because they are schema agnostic. With a native system, XML data can be accepted, parsed, stored and managed without resorting to storing it as a BLOB. Additionally, native XML databases enable users to access data at a level or granularity that relational databases are unable to provide.

This presentation will offer an overview of the technical characteristics and benefits of native XML databases and how organizations can leverage their maturity to complement relational databases.

Key points will include:

* Putting "extensible" in XML - A discussion of node-level management and how it enables the scalability, flexibility and extendibility inherent in XML databases

* Systems of record vs. system of process - Selecting the right database for the job

* Shift from a three-tier to four-tier model - How XDMBs and RDMBs work together to enable the real-time enterprise

* The future of XML - The data management backbone of Web services