Chapter 14 DBMS-Specific Features

Sybase AS IQ

This section describes features specific to the Sybase AS IQ family of databases.

Sybase Adaptive Server IQ (AS IQ) is a high-performance decision support server designed specifically for data warehousing.

Sybase AS IQ provides benefits that allow an interactive approach to decision support including:

Intelligent query processing using index-only access plans to process only the data needed to satisfy any type of query
Truly interactive, ad hoc query performance on a uniprocessor as well as on parallel systems. An ad hoc query is a query about which the system has no prior knowledge and for which no explicit tuning is required. Ad hoc queries are distinguished from standard or production reports, where only pre-defined variables, such as dates, are used to generate pre-defined reports on a regular basis.
Fully-flexible schema support
Efficient query execution without query-specific tuning by the System Administrator (under most circumstances)
Fast aggregations, counts, comparisons of data
Stored procedures
Entire database and indexing stored in less space than raw data
Numerous index types
Join indexes to improve overall query performance

In Sybase AS IQ, join indexes represent links between columns in different tables. They enable much faster query processing on multiple indexes in a very large database. In Sybase AS IQ, join indexes are usually applied instead of ad hoc queries.