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.
These topics describe how to use built-in database extensions and separately installed modules.
The contains information to assist you in using the HCL® Informix® spatial extension. The HCL Informix spatial extension adds custom data types and supporting routines to the server.
You can use several different GIS data exchange formats for spatial data.
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.
The IBM® Informix® Database Extensions User's Guide explains how to use the database extensions that come with HCL Informix: Large Object Locator, MQ messaging, binary data types, basic text search, node data type, and SQL packages.
The IBM® Informix® XML User's Guide includes information about using built-in functions for XML publishing with HCL Informix.
The HCL® Informix® spatial solution embeds a geographic information system (GIS) within the HCL Informix database server. The HCL Informix spatial data types integrate spatial and non-spatial data, providing a seamless point of access using SQL (Structured Query Language).
HCL® Informix® spatial data types are divided into two categories: the base geometry subclasses and the homogeneous collection subclasses.
You can generate a geometry from the OGC well-known text (WKT) representation. The WKT is an ASCII text-formatted string that allows geometry to be exchanged in ASCII text form.
You can generate a geometry from the OGC well-known binary (WKB) representation. The WKB representation is a contiguous stream of bytes. It permits geometry to be exchanged between a client application and an SQL database in binary form.
You can generate a geometry from an ESRI shape representation. In addition to the two-dimensional representation supported by the Open GIS well-known binary representation, the ESRI shape representation also supports optional Z coordinates and measures.
You can generate a geometry from a Geography Markup Language (GML) representation. The GML can be represented as either GML2 (OGC GML standard 2.1.2) or GML3 (OGC GML standard 3.1.1). In addition to the two-dimensional representation supported by the Open GIS well-known binary representation, the GML representation also supports optional Z coordinates and measures.
You can generate a geometry from a Keyhole Markup Language (KML) representation. KML is an XML-based schema for expressing geographic annotation and visualization on online maps and earth browsers.
An index organizes access to data so that entries can be found quickly, without searching every row. The R-tree access method enables you to index multidimensional objects.
Running queries in parallel distributes the work for one aspect of a query among several processors and can dramatically improve performance.
The total amount of space you need for spatial data is equal to the size of spatial tables plus the size of the spatial indexes.
Use specific spatial data type functions to perform operations on spatial data.
The spatial Java™ API enables Java applications to access geometry features that are stored in databases that contain spatial data. The spatial Java API provides classes to work with spatial objects from Java client-side programs. The client-side objects are called value objects. Spatial value objects can also be created and examined by Java methods that parallel some of the spatial data functions.
The IBM® Informix® TimeSeries Data User's Guide contains information to assist you in using the TimeSeries extension with HCL Informix.
The describes how to program applications to search data from moving objects in HCL Informix® databases using the spatiotemporal search extension.
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.
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.
