The S-PLUS DataBlade for INFORMIX-Universal Server. The natural wedding of an object relational database with an object-oriented data analysis engine

The S-PLUS DataBlade module for the INFORMIX-Universal Server (IUS) combines the strength of a powerful and extensible object-relational database management system with the powerful data analysis, modeling and visualization capabilities of the object-oriented S-PLUS environment. We perform S-PLUS data analysis on data stored in IUS using SQL, the industry-standard query language. The S-PLUS DataBlade module allows S-PLUS expressions and commands to be embedded within SQL expressions, and to conveniently pass data between IUS and S-PLUS. This paper describes the architecture and the capabilities of the S-PLUS DataBlade module.