DB2 goes hybrid: Integrating native XML and XQuery with relational data and SQL

Comprehensive and efficient support for XML data management is a rapidly increasing requirement for database systems. To address this requirement, DB2 Universal Database™ (UDB) now combines relational data management with native XML support. This makes DB2® a truly hybrid database management system with first-class support for both XML and relational data processing as well as the integration of the two. This paper presents the overall architecture and design aspects of native XML support in DB2 UDB and its integration with the relational data-flow engine. We describe the new XML components in DB2 UDB and show how XML processing leverages much of the infrastructure which is used for relational data.