Collecting data about sets and models is an interesting activity and something that Wacs is designed to support as well as it possibly can, but there are limits to what can be done completely in issolation. It has long been in our plans to offer a way of exchanging data about models and sets between systems and one of the basic enabling steps is to allow the export and import of both model and set data. Additionally in the commercial arena, it is useful to be able to move sets between different servers for a range of reasons related to deployment, scaling and upgrade planning.

To facilitate the moving of sets between different Wacs installations we have developed a number of representations of the Wacs database records in the XML (eXtensible Markup Language) format. There are two main formats - the one that represents model data and the one that represents set data. Each of these include extensive cross-referencing features using both identity maps (see ???) and download records. In all cases, for the best results import the model information first and then the set information.