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Designing databases
The first step in creating a relational database is to construct a data model, which is a precise, complete definition of the data you want to store. After you prepare your data model, you must implement it as a database and tables. To implement your data model, you first select a data type for each column and then you create a database and tables and populate the tables with data. You can also implement fragmentation strategies and control access to your data.
Designing and Implementing a Database
The Informix® Database Design and Implementation Guide provides information to help you design, implement, and manage your Informix databases. It includes data models that illustrate different approaches to database design and shows you how to use structured query language (SQL) to implement and manage your databases.
Basics of database design and implementation
Plan a database
Use a customized language environment for your database (GLS)

Designing databases
The first step in creating a relational database is to construct a data model, which is a precise, complete definition of the data you want to store. After you prepare your data model, you must implement it as a database and tables. To implement your data model, you first select a data type for each column and then you create a database and tables and populate the tables with data. You can also implement fragmentation strategies and control access to your data.
- Designing and Implementing a Database
  The Informix® Database Design and Implementation Guide provides information to help you design, implement, and manage your Informix databases. It includes data models that illustrate different approaches to database design and shows you how to use structured query language (SQL) to implement and manage your databases.

Use a customized language environment for your database (GLS)

Global Language Support (GLS) permits you to use different locales. A GLS locale is an environment that has defined conventions for a particular language or culture.

By default, Informix® products use the U.S. English ASCII code set and perform in the U.S. English environment with ASCII collation order. Set your environment to accommodate a nondefault locale if you plan to use any of the following functions:

Non-ASCII characters in the data
Non-ASCII characters in user-specified object names
Conformity with the sorting and collation order of a non-default code set
Culture-specific collation and sorting orders, such as those used in dictionaries or phone books

supports the UTF-8 Unicode locale.

Unlike other locales, UTF-8 enables a single database to store character strings from two or more natural languages that use dissimilar code sets.

For descriptions of GLS environment variables and for detailed information about how to implement non-default locales, see the Informix® GLS User's Guide.