XML is all the rage. How do we store and process XML documents, however? In this talk we present XML Value Store, a persistent distributed (peer-to-peer) storage manager with a value-oriented interface, the Document Value Model (DVM), for XML documents whose parts may be distributed around the net and even moving around (such as on a cell phone at 140 km/h on a motorway). We compare DVM with existing XML processing languages and specifically the W3-consortium based Document Object Model (DOM). We argue that, apart from a series of technical advantages, the central benefit of DVM is a simplified programming model that lets the programmer focus on application logic, and the XML middleware on persistence management, caching, replication, coalescing, encryption, distribution, lookup, routing and internet data transport. We finally sketch a simple extension of XML Value Store with remote execution. Together with storing code in the XML Value Store this lets users send queries to remote XML Value Store for execution and promises highly scalable grid computing functionality with a simple, problem-oriented programming model.

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