The direction of database management technology is changing. For the past fifteen years, relational database management systems (RDBMSs) have focused singularly on high-speed access to and manipulation of simple, alphanumeric information: characters and numbers. This strategy has been remarkably effective given the overwhelming need for business solutions dependent upon simple data, as well as the historical limitations of hardware support for richer, more complex data, such as images and sound.
But in the years since the relational model was first developed and refined, many things have changed. Hardware technology has become increasingly more powerful, capable of handling tremendous processing tasks without sacrificing performance and scalability. The nature of accessible electronic data has changed to include images, sound, video, HTML pages, 2- and 3-D spatial data, text documents, and many more diverse information types. And at the same time, organizations have sought to leverage their database management systems to harness such complex data - including unanticipated information types unique to their own business requirements - in an effort to remain effective in a dynamic, competitive environment.
INFORMIX-Universal Server and DataBlade technology is the solution to this problem. DataBlade modules are standard software modules that plug into the database and extend its capabilities to do anything you want with any data you want. Customers can mix and match shrink-wrapped DataBlade modules from third parties and Informix - or write their own - to create innovative business applications. These professionally certified extensions to INFORMIX-Universal Server are designed specifically to enable users to efficiently store, retrieve, update, and manipulate any new kind of data - regardless of its nature - on demand.
Each DataBlade module contains domain-specific data management expertise, and can be plugged into the server and used individually or in conjunction with other DataBlade modules. With this kind of flexibility, users can custom-tailor their RDBMS to address their unique business data management problems of today and tomorrow. And since customers can choose from a wide variety of such plug-in technology, they are finally in control of their own data management destiny. Just as a general purpose utility knife can be extended to perform different cutting jobs by inserting special-purpose blades, INFORMIX-Universal Server can be extended to manage new datatypes by plugging in the required DataBlade modules.