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GCN Home > 06/26/07 web stories

OASIS ratifies data preparation standard

By Joab Jackson

The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards has brought into its fold a standard that could help systems exchange data that needs to be prepared before its release.

Developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Sun Microsystems and AmberPoint, among others, Version 1.1 of the Content Assembly Mechanism (CAM) has achieved the highest level of ratification within OASIS, according to the consortium.

"CAM has been described as a Swiss army knife for [Extensible Markup Language-based] structures," said David Webber, the chairman of the OASIS CAM Technical Committee.

CAM provides a common syntax for two or more systems to exchange information. Each system may have a set of rules for formatting and staging its own information. CAM provides an Extensible Markup Language-based syntax for representing these actions so they can be carried out by external systems, so that they can draw raw data from external databases or other repositories and format for its own use.

"CAM can be used wherever manipulation or validation of information content structures is required," Webber said, noting that the messaging systems may use the standard most widely.

At least one CAM tool has been produced, the Java jCAM validator and editor.

More news on related topics: Communications / Networks, Data Management



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