Dynamic XML-based exchange of relational data: application to the Human Brain Project.

Area of Science:

• Computer Science
• Bioinformatics
• Data Management

Background:

• Relational databases are common for managing structured data.
• Efficient web-based data exchange from legacy systems is challenging.
• XML is a standard format for data interchange on the web.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a novel approach for exporting relational data into XML format for web data exchange.
• To describe the first real-world application of the SilkRoute middleware.
• To demonstrate a web-based query interface for legacy relational databases.

Main Methods:

• Utilized SilkRoute middleware for dynamic conversion of relational data to a user-defined XML Document Type Definition (DTD).
• Developed the XBrain application, integrating SilkRoute within a Java Server Pages framework.
• Implemented a web-based XQuery interface for accessing a legacy relational database.

Main Results:

• Successfully demonstrated the XBrain application as a functional query interface.
• Enabled dynamic conversion of relational data to XML, facilitating web-based data exchange.
• Provided a practical solution for querying legacy databases through a web interface.

Conclusions:

• The SilkRoute middleware and XBrain application provide an effective solution for web-based data exchange from relational databases.
• This approach facilitates access to and querying of legacy data for research and management purposes.
• The system was successfully demonstrated on a real-world dataset from the University of Washington Brain Project.