Applying a mediator architecture employing XML to retailing inventory control

The concept of mediation has been successfully applied to the development of distributed information systems, where mediators form the middle tier between client applications and data resources, providing valuable abstraction and integration functions. Extensible MarkUp Language (XML) has been used to develop self-describing data models and common interfaces for mediators to be deployed in Web-based information systems. This makes such systems easier to develop, to maintain, and to evolve. This paper discusses the design of such an architecture and its application in retail inventory control in electronic commerce (e-commerce). The prototype system is implemented with Java Servlets and .