Product Review

No matter how advanced enterprise systems become, the sophistication of the tools available to build them, or the advances of architectural approaches and best practices from which to start, the life blood of any system is the raw data. Without the data, what's the point? Whether the system is simply collecting information from a set of HTML forms, or is one participant in a highly complex, distributed environment consisting of several integration touch points, there will always be the challenge of getting data into and out of the system. Data Interchange from Cape Clear provides a novel approach to this problem by applying the best of what XML and Web services have to offer.

Data Interchange is exactly what its name implies, a means to transform data from one format to another. It can transform data to and from XML, SOAP, Comma-Separated Value (CSV), fixed width, structured text (EDI, SWIFT), and Microsoft Excel. The basic process involves four steps:

1. Define the input data format
2. Define the output data format
3. Create a mapping between the formats
4. Deploy the transformation service to the Cape Clear Server

Figure 1, from the Cape Clear documentation, illustrates the life cycle of a typical transformation. During development, if the input or output document is not predefined by an XML Schema, DTD, or WSDL file, the developer must create a Text Schema using the Text Schema Editor. Once laid out, a transformation is created using the XSLT Mapper. Finally, the service is deployed to the Cape Clear Server.

At run time, documents may be submitted in a number of ways. When the document is received, if it is not already in an XML format, it is transformed into XML based on the Text Schema previously defined. The resulting XML document is mapped to the output document using the mapping rules defined in the XSLT Mapper. If the output document is specified by a Text Schema, the data is transformed a second time to its native text or Excel format.

Developing Schemas
For the purposes of this review, I will develop some simple transformations to execute a business process. The first transformation involves a fixed-width text file that contains the names, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of a group of people.

Using the Text Schema Editor, it is easy to develop an XML Schema representation of the text document. First, a sample text file is loaded into the editor. From there, defining fields is as simple as highlighting the text that constitutes the field in a row. For this example, each field is fixed length. The Text Schema Editor automatically sets the width of the field based on the highlighted text. Additionally, each field is given a name and a data type (any valid XML Schema type may be used). Optionally, one can specify the default value for empty fields, a regular expression that defines the format of the data within the field, whether data is marked with quotes, what characters to trim in fixed-width files, the alignment of the data within the field, and whether the field should be processed with regards to case. A start and end tag may also be specified, which can be useful if the data is, for example, preceded by a label such as "Address:". It is also important to note that the Text Schema Editor has the power to handle document headers and footers with a variety of information. For example, if the incoming text file contained routing or system information as a data block in the header, it may easily be parsed into an XML structure or ignored, depending on data and system requirements.

Once created, the text schema serves as the parsing rules for a submitted text file. When the file is received, the rules in the schema are applied and the document is transformed to XML. After the input file has been transformed, Data Interchange may leverage the full power of XSLT in the mapping process.

Mapping Documents
The XSLT Mapper is the tool in which a developer graphically creates a transformation from a source file to a destination file. The interface, shown in Figure 2, is intuitive and follows the general paradigm of mapping interfaces found in similar tools. To create a transformation from the source document to the result document, simply drag the desired node from left to right.

The Mapper supports complex transformation logic by supporting individual transformation rules and XPath statements. XPath statements allow the developer to further isolate the source data into node sets for transformation. Individual transformation rules allow the application of any available XSLT function such as concatenation, substring, arithmetic operators, etc.

Another powerful feature of the XSLT Mapper is the ability to use XSL templates. Templates allow the encapsulation of transformation logic into reusable modules. For example, if processing a document with multiple sets of personal information (i.e., ship-to customer, bill-to customer, sales representative, etc.), the logic to extract the first and last name of each party could be encapsulated into a template. The template can then be applied when appropriate throughout the document without manually repeating the logic.

Performing the Transformation
Now that the XSLT mapping has been created, it may be deployed to the Cape Clear Server. Cape Clear is packaged with a Web service implementation that performs transformations based on mapping documents. To use this prepackaged service, a new project must be defined in Cape Clear Studio. Once the project is created with this transformation Web service, the "Package in a WSAR file" wizard is used to associate the input and output XML Schemas and the input and output XSLT files.

Once packaged and deployed, the XSLT transformation is made available through a Web services interface. In the default configuration, source documents are submitted to the server using SOAP with attachments. The attachment is read, transformed using the Text Schema into its XML representation, mapped using the XSLT Mapping previously defined, and sent to the appropriate output format.

Company Info
Cape Clear Software Inc.
880 Winter Street, Suite 300
Waltham, MA 02451
Tel: 781 622-2258
Fax: 781 622-2378
Toll-free: 888 CAPE-439
Sales: sales@capeclear.com

Licensing
On a per server basis as part of the Cape Clear Business Integration Suite

Pricing
Starts at $20,000 per server

Summary
Cape Clear's Data Interchange applies the best of XML and Web services technology to the problem of transforming and integrating data between systems. The tools for designing and developing mappings are easy to use and provide robust support for many types of file structures. Overall, this is a solid tool that would work well in many integration efforts.