Turning the Network into a Database with Active XML

Because of information ubiquity, one observes an important trend towards transferring information management tasks from database systems to networks. We introduce the notion of data ring that can be seen as a network version of a database or a content warehouse. A main goal is to achieve better performance for content management without requiring the acquisition of explicit control over information resources. In this paper, we discuss the main traits of data rings and argue that Active XML provides an appropriate basis for such systems.