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Together these two aspects of the specification allow interoperability of heteregenous Software applications. It addresses infrastructure issues (how do systems communicate), data issues (how do you describe the data), and choreography (how does the data move around). Public school districts in the United States -- and similar organizations in Australia and Europe -- utilize SIF to solve problems of stove-pipe applications and of application data isolation:
Lack of interoperability also causes difficult purchase decisions for district and site technology co-ordinators who procure administrative and management applications. Many co-ordinators experience an increase in technical support problems from maintaining numerous proprietary systems. Do they invest more money in their aging, installed-base systems? Or invest in newer, more efficient systems? SIFA WORKING GROUPS The Schools Interoperability Framework Association (SIFA) is a non-profit consortium of educators, local education agency personnel, state education agency personnel, federal education personnel and vendors who make or support educational instructive and adminsitrative applications. SIFA is composed of several Working Group s in the areas of:
ADVANTAGES OF SIF SIF is one of the only XML standards that exists today for the exchange of Student-related information. Case studies show a significant dollar savings for schools and school districts that use SIF require vendors to use SIF. HOW IT WORKS Rather than have each application vendor try to set up a separate connection to every other application, SIF has defined the set of rules and definitions to share data within a SIF Zone -- a logical grouping of applications in which software application agents communicate with each other through a central communication point. Zones are managed by a piece of software called a Zone Integration Server (ZIS). A single ZIS can manage multiple Zones. Data travels between applications as a series of standardized messages, queries and events written in XML and sent using Internet protocols. The SIF Specification defines such events. SIF Agents are pieces of software that exist either internal to an application or installed next to it. The SIF Agents function as extensions of each application and serve as the intermediary between the software application and the SIF Zone. The ZIS keeps track of the Agents registered in the Zone and manages transactions between Agents, enabling them to provide data and respond to requests. The ZIS controls all access, routing and security within the system. Standardization of the behavior of the Agents and ZIS means that SIF can add standard functionality to a Zone by simply adding SIF-enabled applications over time. Vertical interoperability "Vertical interoperability" is a situation in which SIF agents at different levels of an organization communicate using a SIF Zone. Vertical interoperability involves data collection from multiple agents (upward) or publishing of information to multiple agents (downward). For example, a state department data warehouse may listen for changes in district level data warehouses and update its database on a regular basis. Or a state department may wish to publish teacher certification data to districts. The three pieces of the SIF specification that deal directly with Vertical Interoperability are the Student Locator object, the Vertical Reporting Objects, and the Data Warehouse objects. Limitations of SIF 1.5 SIF was designed before XML and web service standards were as mature as they are today. Future versions of SIF may integrate web service standards and multiple namespaces. Web Service Interoperability Issues Although SIF was developed before Web Service s became a popular standard, future versions of SIF may integrate web services features. Web services allow for more generalized XML messaging structures typically found in an Enterprise Messaging System that use the concept of an Enterprise Service Bus . Web services standards are also designed to support secure-public interfaces and XML Appliance s can make the setup and configuration easier. Unfortunatly the pricepoint of XML appliances are still out of reach of most school districts. History Founded in 1997 by vendors under the auspices of the Software Information Industry Association (SIIA), SIFA has evolved into a non-profit consortium of the federal Department Of Education , states, education software companies, state education agencies and school districts. The European Union and Australia have started to support the SIF framework. SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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