Netezza Performance Server SQL introduction

Netezza Performance Server SQL is the Netezza Performance Server Structured Query Language (SQL), which runs on the Netezza Performance Server data warehouse system. Throughout this publication, the term SQL is the Netezza Performance Server SQL implementation. Several standards relate to the definition of Netezza Performance Server SQL.

SQL-92 (also called SQL/2), is the operative ANSI/ISO standard for relational databases today. While no vendor supports the complete SQL-92 standard, Netezza Performance Server SQL conforms to all the commonly supported components of SQL-92. In addition, Netezza Performance Server includes some SQL:1999 extensions and some SQL:2003 extensions. This publication describes the Netezza Performance Server SQL language support.

If you have direct access to the Netezza Performance Server system from a command shell, or if you have Netezza Performance Server clients with the Netezza Performance Server CLI tools, you can run SQL commands by using the nzsql command-line interpreter. You can also run Netezza Performance Server SQL commands by using common SQL tools and applications that support ODBC, JDBC, and OLE DB data connectivity APIs.

The Netezza Performance Server system can support multiple concurrent connections from clients. Within a connection, Netezza Performance Server supports only one active SQL activity at a time.

This document uses the nzsql command to show query and command examples.