One of the biggest ongoing challenges faced by many companies is the unlocking of the data that still resides in the mainframe so that it can be reused. Existing data is often valuable for making better and timelier decisions and for maximizing a company's information assets no matter where they reside. The goal is to appropriately share host-based data with customers, suppliers, employees, government agencies and others – all while creating a minimum of new architecture, overhead and infrastructure. To do this most effectively, it's time to rethink the old techniques and apply them in original ways. One approach, which has been used successfully, is to access the mainframe data by means of an industry-specific XML model used as a global, virtual data layer. Not only can XML help create a logical source from which to begin sharing data among all who need it, XML's pre-defined vocabulary and information constructs often represent best practices that are just waiting to be implemented, at little or no cost.