New Product: Infonyte XQL Engine

Wed Jul 21 02:55:28 BST 1999

Dear XML community,

an enhanced commercial version of the proven GMD-IPSI XQL engine
technology is now available - the Infonyte XQL Suite. XQL is a
query language that uses XML as a data model, syntactically very
similar to XSL patterns. 

The Infonyte XQL Suite includes the complete functionality of the
GMD-IPSI XQL Engine, plus bugfixes and speedups. Exciting new
features have been added, e.g. multidocument queries, database
joins, and navigation to documents via http. These unique features
make the Infonyte XQL Suite a powerful and robust framework for
XML based information brokering.

The Infonyte XQL Suite is distributed by GMD-IPSI's spin-off
company GLOBIT - Global Information Technolgies GmbH. Along with
the commercial distribution of the Infonyte XQL Suite, GLOBIT
offers professional support, continuous maintainance, updates,
training, and consulting.

For your convenience, find attached a more detailed description of
the Infonyte XQL Suite, contact information, and some
background information about GLOBIT. Please do not hesitate to
contact GLOBIT (infonyte at globit.com) for further information.

Kind regards,
GLOBIT's Infonyte Team

1. Product Description
----------------------

The Infonyte XQL Suite provides a comprehensive, lightweight
solution for querying and storing large, distributed XML
documents. It is based on two major components, a persistent
implementation of the W3C DOM (Document Object Model) API and a
web-aware query engine for the XQL language.

The lightweight implementation requires only an off-the-shelf Java
runtime environment. Having a remarkably small footprint for
memory, storage, and CPU, it is well suited for distributed
applications which require queryable document/data repositories.
Likewise, it can serve as a solid base for CD-ROM products.

With its integrated support for HTTP and URL, the Infonyte XQL
suite also enables the generation of scalable, multi-user server
applications built on Javasoft's Servlet technology. A particular
strength of Infonyte XQL server applications is the support for
seamless integration of existing web information services into
your value added information products.

The Infonyte XQL Suite originates from a research project at
GMD-IPSI, the Institute for Integrated Publication and Information
Systems of the German National Research Center for Information
Technology.

GMD-IPSI's XQL Engine and PDOM incorporate consolidated concepts
from many years of leading edge research and development in the
fields of federated databases and document management systems, and
have been in a number of real life applications. With the Infonyte
XQL Suite, GLOBIT offers an enhanced and stabilized version of the
XQL Engine and the PDOM for commercial use. GMD-IPSI's research
protoype continues to be available for non-commercial use and
evaluation at http://xml.darmstadt.gmd.de/xql/

1.1 The XQL Query Engine Component

XQL is a query language for XML. It is very similar to XSL
Patterns extended by querying features. XQL expressions are easy
to type, can easily be parsed, and can be used in a variety of
software environments, e.g., as part of a URL, in XML or HTML
attributes, or in programming language strings.

The Infonyte XQL Query Engine implements the complete XQL
W3C-QL'98 workshop paper syntax version of XQL. Without trading
the simplicity of XQL, it supports in addition:
  - Multi document queries
  - Navigational Web queries on HTML documents
  - Return operators and sequence operators
    (Proposed extensions to XQL)
  - database join functionality
  - User definable XQL functions (extensions)

The implementation realizes a robust and efficient mix of indexing
and query optimization techniques. This results in leading edge
performance, especially for structurally complex queries.

The engine can be used on top of any W3C compliant DOM
implementation. This allows for seamless and simple embedding of
XQL support into your applications and services.

1.2 The PDOM component

The Infonyte Persistent Document Object Model (PDOM) implements
the full W3C DOM API. It is specifically tuned to exploit the
Infonyte XQL engine's optimization capabilities.

Persistency is achieved by indexed, binary files. Documents are
parsed once and stored in binary form, accessible to DOM
operations without the overhead of parsing them first. A
self-optimizing cache architecture further increases performance.
This approach scales very well beyond the limitations of main
memory. Thereby it forms a lightweight, flexible and often more
efficient alternative to costly and heavyweight DBMS based
solutions.

2. Contact
----------

Licenses for commercial use can be purchased via mail, fax, email
from

GLOBIT - Global Information Technologies GmbH
                             Phone:  +49-6151-893690
                             Fax:    +49-6151-894033
Dolivostr. 15                Email:  infonyte at globit.com
D-64293 Darmstadt, Germany   Web:    http://www.globit.com/

3. About GLOBIT GmbH
--------------------

GLOBIT - Global Information Technologies GmbH has been founded in
January 1997 as a spin-off company of the Institute for Integrated
Publication and Information Systems (IPSI) of the German National
Research Center for Information Technology (GMD).

GLOBIT develops and distributes advanced enabling software
technology as well as cutting edge application solutions. GLOBIT's
software product portfolio consists of high end software libraries
supporting structured document storage and management based on
SGML and XML, highly efficient digital video archival and
processing based on MPEG, as well as document and multimedia
oriented retrieval, processing and encryption support.

GLOBIT is closely cooperating with research groups in GMD-IPSI as
well as with industrial high tech partners. GLOBIT is currently
engaged in several joint R&D projects in the area of congress
information systems, digital libraries as well as webshop oriented
internet eCommerce solutions. For more information about GLOBIT,
please call +49-6151-893690, contact info at globit.com or visit
http://www.globit.com.

--
GLOBIT GmbH                  Phone:  +49-6151-893690
Ingo Macherius               Fax:    +49-6151-894033
Dolivostr. 15                Email:  ingo.macherius at globit.com
D-64293 Darmstadt, Germany   Web:    http://www.globit.com/

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