Cisco AON supports both XML and non-XML transformation. Cisco AON achieves Extensible Style Language Transformation (XSLT) with the built-in XSLT-based transformation engine using XSLT style sheets written or procured by the customer, allowing any combination of transformations from XML to other XML or non-XML formats, and vice versa.
This is actually an older news piece but I have been so far behind on keeping up with the XML/XSLT news as of late as the time I had before to do this simply doesn't exist at the moment. This piece caught my eye though and even though its a few weeks old it is still a very relavent topic so I decided to post it anyway.
In reading through this there are three questions that pop into mind:
1 - What version of XSLT are they implementing? My guess is 1.0 but there is no mention of version which leaves me wondering.
2 - If 1.0 and as close as we are to a 2.0 recommended specification to what extent will this limit the developer who is interested in 2.0 features? In other words, in a hardware product designed to last between 5 and 10 years how realistic is it to expect that in 5 years, (much less 10) a developer will simply be content using, at that point, a 10 year-old technology? I guess a software upgrade can always fix the problem but I would first want to see some sort of "this is something we have keen interest in looking at when a recommended specification appears and customer demand becomes apparent." before I would allow myself to get too excited over this product.
3 - How does this differ and how is this better than hardware acceleration.
Beyond these three area's of question I have always found the concept of hardware level XML processing something that make's quite a bit of sense. And if I'm not doomed to a world of watching my buddies build XSLT 2.0-based solutions while I continue forward for another 5-10 years in a 1.0 world then I'm definitely down at seeing just what Cisco has to offer in this space.
The question regarding hardware acceleration still remains and this would definitely be something I would want some hard facts on before making any buying decisions. But Cisco hasn't become the #1 provider or Back-bone Quality Hardware Routers for nothing so my interest in this is definitely still peaked.
Guess this is a definite space to watch for the next little while to see what may come in regards to answers to the above questions. If I find anything I will surely fill you in...
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