Market for XML Data Storage Technologies to Increase

XML is proliferating throughout the enterprise, and the need to persist XML content beyond just a single transaction or interaction is resulting in the growth of the market for XML storage technologies, according to a report released today by ZapThink, LLC, an XML-focused industry analyst group. The market for XML data storage technologies was only $75 million in 2000, but will grow to over $4.1 billion by 2005.

The primary methods in use today for storing XML documents include XML-enabled (or extended) relational databases, Native XML Data Stores (NXDs), Content Management solutions, and file systems. The recently released report by ZapThink highlights these developments and identifies the key technologies, trends, and markets for XML data storage technologies in its “XML Data Storage Technologies and Trends” report.

“Developers are taking advantage of XML’s flexibility and extensibility in order to allow content to be shared, redistributed, and recombined easily,” said Ronald Schmelzer, senior analyst at ZapThink. “However, these attributes present challenges to current storage architectures. The way that XML is used will dictate the characteristics of the storage technology chosen.”

Other key findings of the report include:

• XML-enabled RDBMS vendors consumed only 15% of that market in 2000, but will consume over 65% of the total expenditure by 2005.
• Native XML Data Store (NXD) vendors will realize around $1.6 Billion in revenue by 2005.
• NXDs will increasingly become a solution of choice for storage of document-oriented XML content as well as Web Services, B2B messaging, and other transactional formats.
• RDBMS vendors will continue to add XML support to their systems to provide users a way to leverage their existing storage assets.

This ZapThink report, “XML Data Storage Technologies and Trends” covers the various options focused on meeting the requirements for XML storage and retrieval, and identifies benefits, disadvantages, key market drivers, and sizing and growth of the market for these products.