Databases

Databases tailored for the storage of XML data represent an exciting new opportunity for improvement in the storage and manipulation of data and metadata. For a large set of applications an XML database will often far surpass traditional data storage mechanisms in convenience, ease of development and performance. The following list contains a number of applications that are ideally suited for XML databases.

• Corporate information portals
• Membership databases
• Product catalogs
• Parts databases
• Patient information tracking
• Business to business document exchange

XML Enabled databases[edit]

XML enabled databases typically offer one or more of the following approaches to storing XML within the traditional relational structure:

1. XML is stored into a CLOB (Character large object)
2. XML is `shredded` into a series of Tables based on a Schema ^[4]
3. XML is stored into a native XML Type as defined by the ISO^[5]

RDBMS that support the ISO XML Type are:

1. IBM DB2 (pureXML^[6])
2. Microsoft SQL Server ^[7]
3. Oracle Database ^[8]
4. PostgreSQL ^[9]

Typically an XML enabled database is best suited where the majority of data are non-XML, for datasets where the majority of data are XML a Native XML Database is better suited.