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:
- XML is stored into a CLOB (Character large object)
- XML is `shredded` into a series of Tables based on a Schema [4]
- XML is stored into a native XML Type as defined by the ISO[5]
RDBMS that support the ISO XML Type are:
- IBM DB2 (pureXML[6])
- Microsoft SQL Server [7]
- Oracle Database [8]
- 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.
