XML Data Storage
Joe Carroll Russell Gibbons
Agenda
What is XML Storage of XML Benefits of XML Databases Problems with XML Databases Discussion
What is XML
XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a W3C initiative that allows information and services to be encoded with meaningful structure and semantics that computers and humans can understand. XML is great for information exchange, and can easily be extended to include user-specified and industry-specified tags. www.orafaq.com/glossary/faqglosx.htm
Storage of XML
Character Relational (shredded) Native XML
Character
Storage options
Large character fields in DBMS Flat files .xml files
Fast insert & retrieval Poor search
Relational
Data still stored as character Portions of the data extracted into additional relational tables Increased parse time Increased search capabilities
Native XML
Exclusive XML DBMS
Sedna Timber
DB2 Oracle
Integrated XML DBMS
Native XML Benefits
XML messages stored in their original format Documents can be transformed straight from the database via XPath or XSLT. Increased search capabilities for documents that must be stored as XML.
Native XML Problems
Same problems as hierarchical databases
Many-to-many relationships Referential Integrity
Difficult to handle within legacy applications. Increased CPU consumption.
Discussion
References
[1] Shalaka Natu, John Mendonca, Digital Asset Management Using A Native XML Database Implementation, CITC4 03, October 16-18, 2003, Lafayette, Indiana, USA. [2] Matthias Nicola, Jasmi John, XML Parsing: A Threat to Database Performance, CIKM 03, November 3-8, 2003, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. [3] Mattias Nicola, Bert van der Linden, Native XML Support in DB2 Universal Database, Proceedings of the 31st VLDB Conference, Trondheim, Norway, 2005. [4] Native XML data store overview, http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/db2luw/v9/topic/com.ibm.db 2.udb.apdv.embed.doc/doc/c0022308.htm [5] Use XML databases to empower Java Web services, http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-12-2004/jw-1206-xml.html