Xyleme, a dynamic warehouse for XML data of the Web

The current development of the Web and the generalization of XML technology provide a major opportunity which can radically change the face of the Web. Xyleme intends to be a leader of this revolution by providing database services over the XML data of the Web. Originally, Xyleme was a research project functioning as an open, loosely coupled network of researchers. At the end of 2000, a prototype had been implemented. A start-up company, also called Xyleme, is now turning into a product. The authors summarize the main research efforts of the Xyleme team. They concern: a scalable architecture; the efficient storage of huge quantities of XML data (hundreds of millions of pages); XML query processing with full-text and structural indexing; data acquisition strategies to build the repository and keep it up-to-date; change control with services such as query subscription; and semantic data integration to free users from having to deal with many specific DTDs when expressing queries.