EDI XML as a New Standard to Replace EDI
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) allows for information to be easily distributed between trading partner’s paper free to eliminate errors and inefficient handling of information. It has made processing that at times would take a week and sped up the process to a few minutes. Smooth communication and transfer of information between businesses are vital to stay ahead of competition and cut costs of ordering and distribution.
As of late many groups have come to embrace XML (eXtensible Markup Language) for improving upon basic EDI processing and is an evolvement of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) an evolvement of SGML (Standard General Markup Language). This proves interesting because XML was designed for web page development but has been developed into a fairly competent alternative to EDI processing.
As all languages do XML has its setbacks. XML, as well as any language based on SGML, hinges on a structured design but XML has been developed to give developers a level of freedom without having to use DTD (Document Type Declarations), which is the core of SGML.
The choice between EDI and XML is usually attributed to whether there will be human interaction with the raw information or if it will be a computer to computer interaction. XML is made to be easier to edit and read but also uses a large amount of space when compared to EDI which is virtually unreadable except by well trained specialists but when used strictly for computer processing will prove itself faster and with fewer errors. There is something to be said about being able to open an XML document and determine where the scripting went wrong. With an EDI solution it will be much more difficult to ascertain.
The complexity of XML layered on top of the power of EDI machine language adds complexity that makes for a powerful language that can be read by humans or machines easily. EDI XML is 100 times larger in size than regular EDI but is more difficult to change and manipulate when compared to regular XML which is simpler for web use.
Translating an EDI document to XML is very difficult due to the lack of DTD requirements in XML and must be converted using a custom form of structure and cannot be formatted traditionally.
EDI XML, EDI, and XML should coexist peacefully however they are typically used individually for system compliance and reliability. While the power and control of XML is tempting it may not be as promising as the efficiency and low bandwidth requirements of EDI in a modern business environment where EDI currently is the industry standard. This is not to say that XML does not stand to take this role in the future and an XML based solution can certainly be developed to send thin messages. It is also hard to forget that the internet has grown as has local upload and download speeds. With the internet increasingly being wired to everything it is not inconceivable for XML to be the industry standard.