This paper provides principles and guidelines for using DB2 pureXML™ to solve business problems effectively and to achieve high performance when managing XML data in enterprise applications. The examples illustrating the best practices are based on a real-world financial application scenario and demonstrate how to implement the guidelines. The examples can be easily adapted to other types of XML applications. The paper covers the following areas:

• Storage options for XML data to improve performance and storage efficiency
• Techniques for adding XML data into a DB2 database
• Techniques for querying and updating XML documents efficiently
• Techniques for using indexes over XML data with queries effectively
• Techniques for efficiently maintaining and monitoring an XML database
• Techniques for developing efficient pureXML applications