Beyond standard relational database objects, HCL Informix® can be extended to handle specialized data types, access methods, routines, and other objects. Informix includes many built-in extensions that are fully integrated in the database server. Informix also provides modules, which are packages of extended database objects for a particular purpose and that are installed separately from the database server. Alternatively, you can create your own user-defined objects for Informix.
You can create user-defined data types, routines, access methods, and other database objects to suit your needs. You can use application programming interfaces to write user-defined routines and applications that access data in Informix® databases.
The Developers Kit (DBDK) guides contain information about the tools you can use to develop and package modules, which extend the functionality of HCL Informix® databases.
The HCL Informix® module overview serves as an overview of the HCL Informix module development process.
A DataBlade module is a software package that extends the functionality of HCL Informix®.
The primary advantages of using the extensibility of HCL Informix® over using traditional relational databases and applications are better performance, simpler applications, transaction control, and scalability.
Welcome to the documentation for HCL Informix® 15.0.0 and related client tools and products.
HCL Informix® is a fast and scalable database server that manages traditional relational, object-relational, and dimensional databases. Its small footprint and self-managing capabilities are suited to embedded data-management solutions.
These topics describe how to install HCL Informix® database servers, client products, and modules.
In addition to administering the database server, you can tune performance, replicate data, and archive data.
You can upgrade to the 15.0.0 release of HCL Informix® or migrate from other database servers to Informix. Upgrading is an in-place migration method that uses your existing hardware and operating system software. Some changes to the Informix database server can affect upgrading from a previous release.
You can use the HCL Informix® implementation of client APIs to develop applications for Informix database servers.
When you embed HCL Informix®, you can use enterprise-class high-availability and high performance with embeddability features such as easy programmability, a small disk and memory footprint, and silent deployment.
These topics describe how to use built-in database extensions and separately installed modules.
The HCL® Informix® DataBlade® API Programmer's Guide describes information about the , the C-language application programming interface (API) provided with HCL Informix.
The IBM® Informix® DataBlade® API Function Reference describes the functions and the subset of functions that the supports.
You can extend your HCL Informix® database server without creating a module by executing the SQL statements to create each object individually. However, the advantages of packaging extended database objects in a module are control and code reuse.
Although you can create a module manually, you can reduce development time considerably if you use the Developers Kit.
This section describes the overall architecture of the HCL Informix® database server, how modules affect database server processes, and the application programming interfaces you can use in your modules and client applications.
This section contains additional reference information.
The HCL Informix® Developers Kit User's Guide describes how to use tools to develop and package modules.
The Developers Kit InfoShelf is designed to help you work with BladeSmith.
The HCL® J/Foundation Developer's Guide describes how to write user-defined routines (UDRs) in the Java™ programming language for Informix®.
The HCL® Informix® R-Tree Index User's Guide describes the HCL Informix R-tree secondary access method and how to access and use its components.
The HCL® Informix® User-Defined Routines and Data Types Developer's Guide describes how to define new data types and enable user-defined routines (UDRs) to extend HCL Informix.
The IBM® Informix® Virtual-Table Interface Programmer's Guide explains how to create a primary access method with the Virtual-Table Interface (VTI) so that users have a single SQL interface to HCL Informix tables and to data that does not conform to the storage scheme of HCL Informix.
The IBM® Informix® Virtual-Index Interface Programmer's Guide explains how to create a secondary access method with the Virtual-Index Interface (VII) to extend the built-in indexing schemes of HCL Informix typically with a module.
In addition to designing and implementing Informix® dimensional databases, you can use tools to create data warehouse applications and optimize your data warehouse queries.
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.
You can use the popular JSON-oriented query language created by MongoDB to interact with data stored in HCL Informix®.
You can secure your Informix® database server and the data that is stored in your Informix databases. You can encrypt data, secure connections, control user privileges and access, and audit data security.
You can use the HCL Informix® implementation of the SQL language to develop applications for Informix database servers.
Several troubleshooting techniques, tools, and resources are available for resolving problems that you encounter in your HCL Informix® database server environment.
extensions to HCL Informix® scale to many users and the database server itself.
