July 19, 1999

XML Apps To Get Links To Directories

New standard will improve interoperability of business-to-business systems

By Brian Riggs

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The Directory Dilemma

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InternetWeek Directory Powered: Platforms Underpin Extranets, Security InternetWeek Directory Powered: Enterprise Play: MS Buys Zoomit

isco Systems, IBM, Microsoft, Netscape, Novell, Oracle, and other software vendors want to tie a new generation of Extensible Markup Language customer-support management, supply-chain management, and other electronic-business applications with directory services.

Several vendors last week unveiled support for an initiative to develop a Directory Services Markup Language standard, which will give XML-ready applications and directories access to information stored in directories. Microsoft, for example, will develop connectors that will link Microsoft apps to directories via XML. And DSML will let XML-enabled network administration systems manage the security policies and access controls running on Cisco equipment.

"Right now, there's a lot of manual entry of information between a company and its business partners. This standard will be a key enabler of electronic commerce," says Jack Serfass, president and CEO of Bow Street Software Inc., a developer of channel management software and a leader of the DSML initiative. Bow Street's technology is expected to serve as the underpinning of the planned DSML standard.

Jamie Lewis, president of the Burton Group, a consulting firm, says software vendors are cooperating with the DSML initiative because "companies with systems that cannot interoperate in a business-to-business situation are in trouble. This is all about money."

Separately, Novell unveiled DirXML, metadirectory software that will use XML to link information stored in directories, network operating systems, network devices, and business applications. Formerly code-named VirtualReplica, DirXML is add-on metadirectory software that lets Novell Directory Services version 8 exchange data with other directories and applications using XML. DirXML is expected to be released for testing later this year and ship in the first quarter of next year.

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