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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.
Object-relational databases
Create and use extended data types in Informix®

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.

Create and use extended data types in Informix®

This chapter describes extended data types that you can use to build an object-relational database. The term object-relational is not associated with a particular method or model of database design, but instead refers to any database that uses HCL Informix® features to extend the functionality of the database.

An object-relational database is not antithetical to a relational database but rather is an extension of functionality already present in a relational database. Typically, you use some combination of features from Informix® to extend the kinds of data that your database can store and manipulate. These features include extended data types, smart large objects, type and table inheritance, user-defined casts, and user-defined routines (UDRs). The chapters in this section of the manual describe many of these features. For information about UDRs, see Informix® User-Defined Routines and Data Types Developer's Guide and the Informix® Guide to SQL: Tutorial.

For an example of an object-relational database, you can create the superstores_demo database, which contains examples of some of the features available with Informix®. For information about how to create the superstores_demo database, see the Informix® DB-Access User's Guide.