NativeXMLSupportinDB2UniversalDatabase.pdfVIP

Native XML Support in DB2 Universal Database Matthias Nicola Bert van der Linden IBM Silicon Valley Lab IBM Silicon Valley Lab 555 Bailey Avenue 555 Bailey Avenue San Jose, CA San Jose, CA USA USA mnicola@ robbert@ Abstract The major relational database systems have been providing XML support for several years, pre- dominantly by mapping XML to existing con- cepts such as LOBs or (object-)relational tables. The limitations of these approaches are well known in research and industry. Thus, a forth- coming version of DB2 Universal Database? is enhanced with comprehensive native XML sup- port. “Native“ means that XML documents are stored on disk pages in tree structures matching the XML data model. This avoids the mapping between XML and relational structures, and the corresponding limitations. The native XML stor- age is complemented with XML indexes, full XQuery, SQL/XML, and XML Schema support, as well as utilities such as a parallel high-speed XML bulk loader. This makes DB2 a true hybrid database system which places equal weight on XML and relational data management. 1 Introduction XML is the de-facto standard for exchanging data be- tween different systems, platforms, applications, and or- ganizations. Key benefits of XML are its vendor and plat- form independence and its high flexibility. XML is a data model suited for any combination of structured, unstruc- tured and semi-structured data. XML data is easy to ex- tend because new tags can be defined as needed. Also, XML documents can easily be transformed into “different looking” XML and even into other formats such as HTML. Furthermore, XML documents can easily be checked for compliance with a schema. All this has be- come possible through widely available tools and stan- dards such as XML parsers, XSLT, and XML Schema. They greatly relieve applications from the burden of deal- ing with particularities of proprietary data formats. In an era where message formats, bus