As/400E Business Intelligence Solutions - IBM AS/400e User Handbook Manual

AS/400e Advanced Technology
The following functions are available in DB2 Universal Database for AS/400 as of 29 October
1999, through the 1999 Database Enhance PAK or Group PTF SF99014:
• Large objects (LOBs) support allows DB2 UDB to store and manipulate data fields
much larger than the current limits. An AS/400e record with LOB fields can hold up to
15 MB of data. With the new LOB support, DB2 UDB can be used as a platform for
building applications that hold new non-traditional types of data, such as image and
audio as well as very large text blocks.
• The datalink data type extends the types of data that can be stored in database files.
The data stored in the column is only a pointer to the actual object such as an image
file, a voice recording, or a text file. The method used for resolving to the object is to
store a uniform resource locator (URL). This means that a row in a table can be used
to contain information about the object in traditional data types, and the object itself
can be referenced using the datalink data type.
Datalinks also allow the referenced object to be "linked" to the database in such a way
that prevents modification or deletion of the object while it is linked to the database file.
This relationship is maintained by having the database interact with the file system that
contains the object.
• User-defined data types are derived from existing predefined types such as integer
and character data. You can create your own data types and create functions for
different types. You can call a function for each row of a result set and return a value
based on the user-defined type.
• SQL now allows the user-defined functions to be used within SQL itself. User-defined
functions are necessary building blocks to support database extenders (extensions to
support rich text and multimedia search and manipulation) currently supported on
UDB.

AS/400e Business Intelligence Solutions

What is Business Intelligence?
Business Intelligence (BI) turns corporate data into meaningful business information. It can
help you understand business trends and make better forecasting decisions. It can be used to
bring better products to market in a more timely manner. It can be used to analyze daily sales
information and make snap decisions that can significantly impact your company's
performance. Business Intelligence provides a means to become familiar with who your
customers are.
Business Intelligence turns corporate data into decision support information. Business
Intelligence solutions have become much more affordable due to new innovations in software
and hardware. One of these key technologies is data warehousing. Data warehouses provide
the plumbing for Business Intelligence applications. The advent of data warehouse
60
AS/400e System Handbook