Dare you question that we're heading for an XML world?

For conclusive evidence, look no further than the staid, slow-moving world of relational database management, which is embracing XML as its own. Last week, IBM launched an online demonstration of its Xperanto technology, a unified scheme for accessing relational DB2 and distributed XML data in a single query. And in January, Oracle announced that its Oracle 9i release 2 database (due out mid-year) would include Oracle XML DB, a feature that enables you to store XML data natively. Microsoft also has big XML database plans--its Yukon version of SQL Server, due out next year, will feature native XML storage capability.

Who's asking for this capability? According to Jeff Jones, director of strategy for IBM Data Management Solutions, it's all about enabling customers to access database data and distributed, unstructured data across the enterprise in one swoop. "They want to be able to query all information about a particular subject and have that query go out to databases and Web services and XML document libraries, and with one request get everything back that they need," he says. Using the connective tissue of Web services and various IBM middleware products, users will be able to use the powerful XQuery language on a forthcoming version of DB2 that should be available later this year.

Oracle takes a completely different tack. Robert Shimp, vice president of Oracle 9i database marketing, notes Gartner's prediction that next year 70 percent of transactions will use XML. According to Shimp, with the XML repository built into Oracle 9i release 2, customers will benefit from the mission-critical features of database transaction processing even as they rely more and more on XML and Web services for B2B e-commerce. He observes that the current method of processing XML-based transactions on an application server is deficient: "As you start to scale up these business-critical applications in the middle tier, you run into significant issues of reliability and security that are really the fortéof the classic enterprise database."

For enterprises, the array of big-company XML database choices is significant. Previous solutions, such as Software AG's Tamino or the Ipedo XML Database, demanded that you maintain a separate database product for XML data. Pulling it all together makes sense, because big, relational databases remain the organising principle of enterprise computing. With XML emerging as the organising principle of the Internet, sooner or later, the two need to merge in the back end.

Eric Knorr is a an award-winning freelance writer and consultant who frequently works with e-business consultancy Envivid Solutions in San Francisco. He is the founding editor of CNET's Computers.com.

Copyright © 2009 CBS Interactive, a CBS Company. All Rights Reserved.
ZDNET is a registered service mark of CBS Interactive. ZDNET Logo is a service mark of CBS Interactive.