Even though XML solves many problems by providing a standard format for data interchange, there are still other problems to overcome. When building an enterprise data application, you need to answer questions such as:
These kinds of issues can be addressed only by a database management system. By incorporating the XML information and meta-information directly into the database, you can more directly (and more quickly) obtain the XML results that your other applications need for their particular purpose. This is where the XML Extender can assist you. With the XML Extender, you can take advantage of the power of DB2 in many XML applications.
With the content of your structured XML documents in a DB2 database, you can combine structured XML information with your traditional relational data. Based on the application, you can choose whether to store entire XML documents in DB2 as a nontraditional user-defined data type, or you can map the XML content as traditional data in relational tables. For nontraditional XML data types, the XML Extender adds the power to search rich data types of XML element or attribute values, in addition to the structural text search that the DB2 UDB Text Extender provides.
With the XML Extender, your application can: