Technology Lab / Information Technology

Microsoft and others draft new XML resource model

Microsoft and a consortium of technology companies have compiled a draft for a …

The XML revolution at Microsoft has come a long way since the days when Bill Gates allegedly dismissed it as being "just plain text." These days it seems like XML is everywhere, including the new default file format in Office 2007.

Now Microsoft and a consortium of other computer companies, including BEA Systems, BMC Software, Cisco Systems, Dell, EMC, IBM, Intel, and Sun, have published a draft for a new network resource model based on XML technology.

The model is called the Service Modeling Language (SML) and it describes information about IT resources and services, including how networks are connected and which services are available to which users. Previously, IT departments tended to document their available resources using different applications and formats, which didn't translate well between each other. With the XML-based SML language, applications will be able to access a common description of network resources. The self-describing nature of XML will make it easier for third-party products to provide information such as network maps and resource availability without applications having to understand every type of hardware and service connected to the network.

As someone who was once tasked to make a network map for an organization that had grown their network in much the same way that slime grows in a petri dish, I can imagine this sort of standardization could make IT managers' lives much easier.

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