Contact: Testbed Team

Date Created: 12/01/06

Last Modified: 09/17/09

related links

The following links provide more detail on topics related to the MIP XML Testbed:

• Manufacturing B2B Test Bed - Our existing Manufacturing B2B Testbed has been initiated to address the needs for demonstration and testing of B2B standards in a persistent environment that provides reusability, accumulation of organizational knowledge and lessons learned, coordination, and cost-sharing among the participants. The testbed is an on-going effort to mobilize software vendors, manufacturers, standards organizations, and other stake-holding parties to enhance the capability for on-demand demonstration and testing of interoperability of enterprise applications in a B2B setting.

• Schematron - a schema language. It can be used to validate any XML document including an XML schema itself.  Schematron schema language differs from most other schema languages for XML (e.g., the XML schema, Document Type Definition - DTD) in that it is used to specify rule-based assertions rather than grammar expressions. This means that instead of creating a grammar for an XML document, a Schematron schema makes assertions which apply to specific context paths within the target document.  If an XML document fails to meet the assertion, a diagnostic message that is supplied by the author of the Schematron is displayed. Schematron is more expressive than XML Schema language (although more verbose), easy to use, and standards-based. It can validate the content of an XML document and validate relationships between multiple elements/attributes potentially in multiple documents.  Its assertion syntax uses the W3C XPath/XSLT expressions.  Further information can be obtained directly from Schematron.

• NIST's XML Technologies Conformance Testing Activities - provides more information on NIST activities related to the testing of XML tools themselves (as opposed to the use of XML Schema to support integration needs)

• Accordare - In collaboration with NIST, Accordare developed a testing tool known as the Reflector.  The Reflector is a tool that focuses on deployment time and run time testing of asynchronous (i.e., disconnected) and synchronous (i.e., connected) testing of XML message exchanges. It serves as an independent observer and message router with the capability to log the transactions exchanged between the participants in the testing process.

• Systems Integration for Manufacturing Applications (SIMA)

• XML is a specification for an exchange syntax and is a product of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).  In combination with XML Schema, a related specification for describing information, it is used to exchange data between systems.  It is being used broadly on the Internet, as well as with applications not on the Internet.   The XML and XML Schema specifications together provide a means for defining the structure and content of information and exchanging that information between systems.

• A group of federal IT professionals formed the XML Schema Interoperability Working Group under the Data Architecture Subcommittee of the Federal CIO Council.  This is home to interested parties working towards developing a repository of XML Schema naming and design rules and tests for the use of those rules in XML Schemas.  The group is working in conjunction with NIST's QOD project.

• Federal CIO Council's XML Community of Practice (XML CoP)