Why Extend Your Informix Database Server?

The primary advantages of using the extensibility of IBM Informix Dynamic Server over using traditional relational databases and applications are:

• better performance.
• simpler applications.
• transaction control.
• scalability.

Better Performance

Your Informix database server improves the performance of your applications in the following ways:

• User-defined routines are optimized.

  When you put your custom routines in the database server, the query optimizer can calculate when to run them during queries.

• Indexes increase query speed.

  Indexes, created with secondary access methods, can efficiently find and compare values. Secondary access methods build and manipulate index structures on data. With your Informix database server, you can create indexes on data that cannot be sorted in a standard relational database. You can implement your data as extended data types and create functional indexes to speed sorting. A functional index sorts information about the data, instead of the data itself.

  For example, if your data is images, you can index features of the images. Then, when you run a query to match an image, the index runs much faster than comparing the binary files of each image.

• Network traffic is reduced.

  When you use user-defined routines and other extensibility features, you perform more processing on the data within the database server. Therefore, you send less data to the client application.

Simpler Applications

Using DataBlade modules simplifies applications in the following ways:

• DataBlade modules handle code for manipulating and storing data so the application does not have to.
• DataBlade module routines and data types can be accessed using SQL.

  SQL is a standard language and does not require complex application code or programming languages.

• DataBlade modules are easy to upgrade.

  When you change a DataBlade module, you do not need to relink existing applications; all changes are handled within the database server.

• All data is stored and processed in the same database server.

  For example, with a geospatial DataBlade module, geographic coordinates are analyzed and processed by the database server instead of in a complex application. In addition, the geospatial data is easily integrated with other types of data in a relational database.

• DataBlade modules are easy to combine.

  You can combine DataBlade modules that handle different kinds of data in the same database. You can then create one application to integrate all the data.

  For example, if a broadcast news company wanted to integrate video, images, audio, and text data for its programs, it could store all the data in one database and use a DataBlade module for each type of data. Then the company could use an application that employs the IBM Informix Web DataBlade module to access information and display it in a Web browser.

Transaction Control

DataBlade modules become part of the database. Therefore, all operations carried out by DataBlade module routines are supported by database services, such as backup, rollback, and recovery. You can safely store your data, which you formerly stored in files, in the database by using smart large objects.

Scalability

DataBlade extensions to Dynamic Server scale to a large number of users just as well as the database server itself.