The Might of XML


Though Web services have been much ballyhooed for their ability to reduce the
amount of manual coding for programmers, glaring inefficiencies in the way
XML is digested threatens to paralyze distributed computing.


Modern-day Web services are largely based on XML, which analysts
say is fine for simple functions, but tends to get bloated when used in
massive quantities.

Current XML parsers are not very effective. The APIs have
just as much trouble reading large file types in an efficient manner as they do reading multiple small file types.

This stresses out current processors, which power the application server to
deliver content. Research firm ZapThink said this poses
a problem because it believes corporations will continue to ramp up the
amount of XML they employ in their networks, expanding from 15 percent today
to almost 50 percent by 2008.


Because it is believed that Web services traffic will dominate XML traffic
by the end of 2005, the possibility of a network bogging down at crucial
points during, for example, a purchase order execution, increase
10-fold. This is a horrifying
proposition for the business that relies on the Internet to fuel its
money-making transactions.


With the glamour of Web services steeped in the possibility of processing
thousands or even millions of transactions on a network, the threat that
insufficient XML consumption could tie up computer systems is very real.
ZapThink analyst Ronald Schmelzer said customers and vendors have expressed
concern about XML’s ability to underpin Web services.


He admitted the problems with XML processing put a damper on
the research company’s prognostication for the
multi-billion-dollar growth for service-oriented architectures and
distributed computing.


After all, ZapThink believes
the market for SOA systems will balloon from $4.4 billion in
2005 to $43 billion by 2010.


But, he noted, several vendors are rising to meet the challenge.
One might think that Microsoft , IBM
, BEA Systems and others would lead
the innovation of the so-called XML optimization market. Not so.


Optimizing XML


Companies like DataPower, Tarari and Xambala are providing chipsets or cards
that can be used to clear the path for speedy XML digestion on networks.
Others, like Rogue Wave, are focusing on fixes in the software stack to
deliver them from the glut of fat XML files.


Forrester Research analyst Randy Heffner believes that, while the inefficiencies of XML impact a number of network
functions, the problem is at the processor level. Even
adding a basic function like encryption can knot up Web services, he said.


That’s where companies like DataPower come in. Eugene Kuznetsov, co-founder
and CTO, was one of the first major engineers to relay the
importance of XML optimization to the industry.


Since its launch in 1999, DataPower has created products for speeding up,
securing and integrating XML. Initially, Kuznetsov said, the company tried to
treat the problem with software.


But it quickly realized that having its own
chipset was the key, because current processors aren’t equipped to
handle massive loads of XML. That’s why the
company created the XG4 chipset to process XML faster and sold it in an
appliance along with the software.


“There is a big tradeoff with XML,” Kuznetsov said. “You get all of this
functionality, ease of implementation and interoperability at the cost of
performance. Large financial services institutions have this problem in
spades.”


In contrast, Rogue Wave Software, a division of Quovadx, provides
advanced processing via software, according to President Cory
Isaacson. His company subscribes to the notion that native code is better
for processing XML and Web services than languages like Java or .NET.


Rogue Wave has created a product called Lightweight Enterprise Integration
Framework (LEIF), a language-independent tool that does the heavy lifting of
XML message management using native code, or code that is compiled to run
with a particular processor. LEIF takes C++ applications and exposes and
consumes them as Web services in native code.


Isaacson said Rogue Wave is planning similar solutions for languages other
than C++ but declined to elaborate. While Isaacson acknowledged DataPower as
an early mover and that hardware solutions will have a place in the
networks, he said native code has an advantage.


“Even if you parse a message faster in a hardware set, it doesn’t
necessarily give you any access or intelligence for what to do with the
message,” Isaacson said. You still have to have application code that
understands what you want to do with the message to really make it
efficient. We think that native code is going to have to play a part in
this.”


Heavyweights Slow to XML Optimization


ZapThink’s Schmelzer said the glut of XML is thick enough to bear a large
market in which the likes of DataPower and Rogue Wave can sell their wares. He
predicted the XML performance optimization market will reach $1.2
billion by 2010.


That could be a conservative estimate. After all, Web services purveyors
like Microsoft, IBM and BEA haven’t made any large splashes into the pond —
yet.


Forrester’s Heffner said optimizing XML is on these companies’ radar for
sure.


“They see the need and if it fits in priority scheme, long term they will have this integration,” Heffner said.
The question is how they go about it: will they put it in front of the
server or in the server?”


Last month IBM, Microsoft and BEA proposed the XML-binary Optimized
Packaging specification to the
World Wide Web Consortium following a workshop on the topic in September.


So, although they don’t have products, they are certainly weighing the
dilemma that faces the industry. How can these vendors sell
customers Web services infrastructures if they can’t provide them with fast,
multiple messaging functionality?


And right now, simple Web services have been enough, even though Heffner and
Schmelzer allow that add-ons like the Web Services Security stack will choke
the network some more.


“There are enough scenarios where the latency is not that critical that it
could take some slower processing of XML messages,” Heffner explained. “It’s
when the volume increases and things start backing up that it becomes a
problem.”

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