IBM Informix Standard Engine (SE) is a UNIX, Linux and Microsoft Windows-based embeddable database server. Informix SE seamlessly integrates with Informix application development tools and third party development tools. It is ideal for developing small to medium-sized applications that need the power of SQL without any database administration requirements.
A cost-based query optimizer combined with flexible indexing options allows Informix SE to maintain excellent performance even for complex queries. Informix SE also allows for very large (up to 1TB) databases on new operating systems that support large file sizes.
Informix SE takes advantage of native UNIX operating system and file management, making backing up databases and tables as simple as backing up any other UNIX. Informix SE includes easy-to-use utilities that allow users to migrate Informix SE data to another Informix SE database - or to the Informix Dynamic Server, providing an upgrade path to a high-performance, parallel-processing database server.
Informix SE provides a wide range of client connectivity options: It supports the traditional Informix client tools (such as Informix SQL and 4GL) and other development and reporting tools through support for the ODBC and JDBC standards. ODBC and JDBC drivers are available for a variety of platforms, broadening the range of client solutions available.
The transaction logging feature of Informix SE supplies an audit trail of data changes, ensuring fundamental data integrity and allowing fast and reliable restoration of databases when a system failure occurs. During a transaction, changed data is locked to prevent another user from altering that data at the same time. The impact of locking during transactions can be optimized through the flexible choices of lock and read isolation levels available in Informix SE.
Informix SE integrity constraints, stored procedures and triggers allow data validation rules to be defined centrally in the database. These rules ensure that information inserted or updated in the database meets the business criteria determined by the specific application.
Informix SE provides security controls at the database, table, column and stored procedure levels. Stored procedure permissions can be used to restrict user access to business functions rather than underlying data, allowing extreme flexibility in determining user rights.
