Summary

Throughout this book, I've tried to show how XML is the key to building integrated solutions and how SQL Server 2000's support for XML makes it easier to bridge the gap between the relational format we store data in and the XML format we want to use to exchange that data. In this final chapter, I've shown you a sample application that makes use of the XML-related functionality in SQL Server to integrate multiple organizations and build a flexible e-commerce solution. I've also introduced BizTalk Server and shown how you can use it to build a document messaging solution.

As I said at the beginning of this book, people conduct more and more business on the Internet. As they do so, we can see an increasing need for technologies that allow organizations to integrate with each other and that support the use of multiple devices to access business information. XML is such a technology, and support for XML is becoming a must-have feature for any development environment or server application that will be used to build integrated business solutions. In the past few years, we've seen Microsoft add XML functionality to nearly all of the products the company produces, from established products like SQL Server to brand-new products like BizTalk Server. The challenge now is for us to use these XML-enabled tools to build the business applications that will succeed in the Internet age.