Image, audio, and video objects stored as BLOBs in a DB2 database are afforded the same security and recovery protection as traditional numeric and character data. So too is the information stored for these objects in metadata tables. Users must have the required privilege to select, insert, or update objects.
A user issues UDFs to select, insert, update, or delete objects from a user table. To perform the requested operations, the UDFs must be able to access, and if necessary update, the administrative support tables that hold attribute information for the objects. The extenders allow the UDFs to perform these operations on the administrative support tables if the user has the appropriate privilege on the user table.
Some extender-related administrative operations require DBADM authority. See Chapter 16, Application programming interfaces for the authority required by DB2 extender administrative APIs. See Chapter 17, Administration commands for the client for the authority required by DB2 extender administrative commands.
When the content of an image, audio, or video is stored in a file referenced from the database, the metadata for the object is protected by DB2. The file must be in a directory that can be read by PUBLIC, that is, by all users.
BLOBs and metadata can be backed up and recovered in the same way as other data in DB2. Object contents stored in a file can be backed up and recovered using non-DB2 tools. Also, QBIC catalogs and video indexes can be backed up and recovered using non-DB tools. For information about backing up a QBIC catalog, see Creating a QBIC catalog. For information about backing up a video index, see Indexing a video.