XML solves many problems by providing a
standard format for data interchange, some challenges remain. When building an
enterprise data application.
- How often do I want to
replicate the data
- What kind of information
must be shared between applications.
- How can I quickly search
for the information.
- How can I make a
particular action, such as a new entry being added, trigger an automatic
data interchange between all of my applications.
These kinds of issues can be addressed only by
a database management system. By incorporating the XML information and
meta-information directly in the database, you can more efficiently obtain the
XML results that your other applications need. With the XML Extender, you can
take advantage of the power of DB2 in many XML applications.
With the content of your structured XML
documents in a DB2 UDB database, you can combine structured XML information with
traditional relational data. Based on the application, you can choose whether to
store entire XML documents in DB2 in user-defined types provided for XML data
(XML data types), or you can map the XML content as base data types in
relational tables. For XML data types, XML Extender adds the power to search
rich data types of XML element or attribute values, in addition to the
structural text search that the DB2 Universal Database provides.
XML Extender provides two methods of storing
and access for XML data in DB2:
XML column method
Stores entire XML documents
as column data or externally as a file, and extracts the required XML element or
attribute value and stores it in side tables, which
are indexed tables for high-speed searching. By storing the documents as column
data.you can combine structured information with traditional relation data based
on application you can chose weather to store that data extender add the power
to search.
Feature of XML extender:
XML extender provide the
following features to help you manage and exploit XML data with db2
Administration tool to help
you manage the integration of xml data is relational tables
Storage and access method for
xml data with in the database
Data type definition
repository for you to store DTD used to validate xml data
the ability to validate xml
document using a schema.
Storage and access
methods: XML Extender provides two storage and
access methods for integrating XML documents with DB2 data structures: XML
column and XML collection. These methods have very different uses, but can be
used in the same application.
- XML column method
- This method helps you store intact XML
documents in DB2. The XML column method works well for archiving documents.
The documents are inserted into columns enabled for XML and can be updated,
retrieved, and searched. Element and attribute data can be mapped to DB2 UDB
tables (side tables) which can be indexed for fast search.
- XML collection method
- This method helps you map XML document
structures to DB2 UDB tables so that you can either compose XML documents
from existing DB2 UDB data, or decompose XML documents, storing the untagged
data in DB2 UDB tables. This method is good for data interchange
applications, particularly when the contents of XML documents are frequently
updated.