IIUG Insider (Issue #37) 03 October 2003

Highlights: IIUG President’s Letter, Board Nominations, SIGs and More…

Welcome to the International Informix Users Group (IIUG) Insider! Designed for IIUG members and Informix user group leaders, this publication contains timely and relevant information for the IBM Informix community.


Contents:

  1. A Letter from Jerry Hamilton, IIUG President
  2. Nominate Yourself or a Colleague for the IIUG Board
  3. IIUG Special Interest Groups Continue to Rock
  4. Informix User Group Leadership Council Meeting Announced
  5. IIUG Webcast: IBM Red Brick Warehouse Server Roadmap
  6. Four J’s Software to Sponsor 2003 IIUG Director’s Award
  7. IBM Informix MQ DataBlade
  8. Four J’s Discounts Genero Web Training for IIUG Members
  9. First European Red Brick User Group Meeting
  10. Errata: IDS .NET Technical Preview Program
  11. Useful Links
  12. Closing and Credits

A Letter from Jerry Hamilton, IIUG President

As the summer draws to a close, I thought I’d recap with you some of the things IIUG has accomplished, the changes we’ve been through and highlight some upcoming events.

The current condition of the IT industry has presented the IIUG many challenges this year, as I’m sure it’s been a challenge for many of you. The needs and wants of our membership are diverse and complex. The IIUG board, as a team, has learned a great deal while trying to build successful programs that benefit this wide range of users. It’s especially tough knowing that you, the average Informix user, are a well seasoned veteran with many years of experience. You know the product inside and out. You know what you want from the product. You’ve seen just about everything there is to see of the product and yet, that little new piece of technology is always exciting to play with. I hope many of you are getting the opportunity to play with the new release of Informix, 9.4.

This summer:

Back in July, IIUG’s Program Manager, Dawn Shannon, vacated her position due to personal reasons. Dawn Shannon served IIUG as Program Manager for more than four years. She was instrumental in helping us make a smooth transition as a user group with Informix Software to being a user group with IBM. She spent countless hours learning and understanding the IBM culture and how best to work with them. She provided us instant access to many top executives and best practices to achieve the greatest working relationship with IBM. Her energy, caring approach and dedication will be missed. On behave of all of IIUG, Thanks Dawn!

From this past June, IIUG’s Managing Director’s position was dissolved. Current IIUG Board member, Fred Hubbard, vacated the position after spending almost a year at it. Fred, like Dawn, spent many hours building business relationships with IBM, helped the IIUG Board stay focused on projects and took the IIUG into areas we had not been in the past. His leadership allowed the IIUG to grow, become more business-like and to be constantly prepared for the turbulent times that strangled the IT industry the past year. Fred has been an active member of the board for many years and works with our ENews team providing electronic information like our bi-weekly, Insider. Thanks Fred!

Nominations are now being sought for the 2004 term of the IIUG Board of Directors. More about this in a separate note but suffice it to say that new blood keeps IIUG healthy, strong and growing. We always need fresh and energetic leaders, optimally with experience running user groups and the like.

Coming up in October is the IBM Data Management Technical Conference in Las Vegas, NV, USA. The IIUG Board of Directors will be present and busy making technical presentations, as well as, leading discussion groups on product futures, participating in the “Meet the Executives” session, occupying a booth in the exposition hall, holding our Annual General Meeting and meeting face-to-face with many of you at our Informix Users Group Leadership Council meeting. We look forward to seeing many of you at these events. At all these events you’ll get the chance to meet, Stuart Litel, IIUG President Elect for 2004 and chat with him to see what plans he has for the IIUG. Don’t miss any of it!

Later this fall we’ll be doing our next membership survey. This survey will attempt to gauge your feelings on how we’re doing and what things you would like to see us do. We’ve had great response on this survey in the past and I’m sure this year will be no different. Keep in mind that since the survey is still several weeks away, you’re encouraged to drop me any suggestions at jerry@iiug.org.

See you at the conference.

Jerry Hamilton IIUG President


Nominate Yourself or a Colleague for the IIUG Board

As pre-announced in our 5 September issue, the current IIUG Board will complete its term at the end of this calendar year. At this point, the IIUG Nominating Committee, chaired by outgoing IIUG President Jerry Hamilton, has kicked into gear seeking candidates to run for the 2004 IIUG Board.

If you have a passionate interest in Informix products, and the drive, vision, and commitment to lead and represent the most influential community of Informix users, please give your potential nomination serious thought.

Nominations will be entertained through the end of October and elections will take place during the month of November.

For additional info, visit: /iiug/committee.html. If you would like to nominate yourself or a colleague, please contact the IIUG Nominating Committee by writing to Nominating-Committee@IIUG.org.


IIUG Special Interest Groups Continue to Rock

Jean Georges Perrin, IIUG Board member, ENews editor and special interest group advocate, or SIG Master, submitted the following SIG update:

Recently, we ran a SIG health survey to understand more clearly how they are used by our members and improve their operation. The result was impressive. In fact, our latest metrics show most SIGs to be growing in participation and messages posted.

During this survey, we called for IIUG SIG champions to animate the SIGs. We have found that an active and engaging champion with good knowledge of the subject area is particularly important.

We already had Sean Durity as our Linux Champ, now we also have Jean Briere for iiug-fra@iiug.org, Hal Maner for cloudscape@iiug.org, Mark Denham for peoplemix@iiug.org, and Clifton M. Bean for sapmix@iiug.org. Are there any more takers?

We also continue have the vendor champion par excellence: Jonathan Leffler, IBM for classics@iiug.org. He’s known to lurk elsewhere too. But we need more.

IBM has committed the participation of additional technical and marketing representatives to add more vitality and depth to the discourse. As soon as they have been identified, they will introduce themselves to their corresponding SIG.

Finally, I’d like to remind you of all the lists the IIUG is currently serving. The most popular by number of messages posted are: ids, classics, sapmix, and iiug-esp (Spanish). The complete list can be found at: /forums/.


Informix User Group Leadership Council Meeting Announced

The Informix User Group Leadership Council (IUGLC) will hold its annual face-to-face meeting the day before the start of the IBM Data Management Technical Conference in Las Vegas.

IUGLC is open to anyone involved in the leadership of Informix Local User Groups (LUGs) or the Informix User Group Advisory Council.

The day long meeting will take place on Saturday, October 25, 2003 and will cover topics of general interest to Informix community leaders around the world, such as the following:

  • News and highlights on the latest IIUG LUG support initiatives
  • Informix user group challenges and opportunities
  • Sharing best practices with fellow LUG leaders
  • Networking with other LUG leaders over lunch
  • Hearing IBM executive panelists share the latest business and technical directives related to Informix products.

If you have any questions regarding the meeting, please send an email to James Edmiston, james@iiug.org.


IIUG Webcast: IBM Red Brick Warehouse Server Roadmap

Join Fred Ho, Senior Development Manager for IBM Red Brick Warehouse Server and find out all about the product roadmap for IBM Red Brick Warehouse Server. Fred will also cover the content in the next release of Red Brick, v6.30 that is due to be released in 1H2004.

Date: Wednesday, 19 November, 9am US Pacific

For the equivalent date and time around the world, please visit http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meeting.html.


Four J’s Software to Sponsor 2003 IIUG Director’s Award

The IIUG Board of Directors would like to thank Four Js Software (http://www.4js.com) and their CEO, Mr. Jean-Georges Schwartz, for there very generous donation in sponsorship of the IIUG Board’s Annual Directors award.

As it is now customary, the award will be given away at the IIUG Annual General Meeting, to take place during the upcoming IBM Data Management Conference in Las Vegas, NV.

Please be sure to stop by the Four Js booth as they are a Silver Sponsor to see their new software offerings and thank them for continuing to support IIUG.


IBM Informix MQ DataBlade

IBM’s alphaWorks site posted this new article on 18 August:

What is IBM Informix MQ DataBlade?
IBM Informix MQ DataBlade is an interface between the IBM Informix database and applications using IBM WebSphere MQSeries. IBM’s MQSeries enables communications between applications or between users and a set of applications on dissimilar systems. Because MQSeries runs on over 30 platforms, its forte is that it is able to integrate disparate systems.

How does it work?
IBM Informix MQ DataBlade comes as a module that installs IBM Informix user-defined routines (UDRs) that communicate using the WebSphere MQ integration software. The DataBlade provides access to MQSeries queues from SQL functions or tables. Using SQL to interface to these queues results in faster application development and integration times.

For more information, please visit http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/mqblade?Open&ca=daw-flnt-082803.


Four J’s Discounts Genero Web Training for IIUG Members

Four J’s is pleased to announce Genero training online via web conferencing in the United States and Canada and a 15% discount off those course fees for IIUG!

Live Lectures: Live lectures include a web and toll free audio conference where you hear and see the instructor’s presentation and software demonstrations. You can also interact with the class and instructor through voice and chat. There will be four 1-2 hour lectures. You can either listen and participate in them live or hear an archived replay at a time convenient for you. You will also have access to our training server to complete class lab exercises and practice with the software.

Upcoming Sessions: 27-31 October and 14 December Live Lectures

Pricing: Course fee is USD 575 per student. Additional students from the same company are 25% off the class price. All registrations are 15% off with IIUG membership.

Registration: Email training@4jsamerica.com for additional details and registration.


First European Red Brick User Group Meeting

The first European Red Brick User Group was held at the IBM Milan Forum on 9th and 10th September. Twenty five people attended the meeting, a mixture of customers, business partners and four IBM representatives. Cindy Fung, from IBM Red Brick Development, presented along with Tommy Eunice of IBM Worldwide Marketing, covering technical items and Red Brick directions for the future. There were also two users testimonials and one business partner presentation. Meeting feedback showed 100% satisfied and included suggestions for a subsequent event in six months time. Cindy Fung committed to follow up on user requirements and provide ongoing communication.


Errata: IDS .NET Technical Preview Program

In the prior issue of the IIUG Insider which was e-mailed to our membership we carried a note titled “.NET for IDS Open Beta Program”. However, IBM has provided a revised title and text for the announcement:

IBM Informix Dynamic Server .NET Provider is available now for Technical Preview. The .Net Provider enables .Net applications to access data from IBM Informix databases. For more information on .Net, please go to http://www.microsoft.com/net/.

The trial code and documentation can be accessed at http://www7b.software.ibm.com/dmdd/zones/informix/downloads/dotnetpreviindex.php.

You can also get to this site from IBM’s .NET Framework page at http://www7b.software.ibm.com/dmdd/downloads/dotnetbeta/.

Any customer who is registered with IBM’s developerWorks will be able to download this code and begin working with it. For questions or information please contact Srinivas Kolli at kolli@us.ibm.com.


Useful Links

In response to your input, we have created a new page on the IIUG web site containing all the links we used to include. Please find it at:

/quicklinks.html


Closing and Credits

The International Informix Users Group (IIUG) is an organization designed to enhance communications between its worldwide user community and IBM. IIUG’s membership database now exceeds 18,000 entries and enjoys the support and commitment of IBM’s Data Management division. Key programs include local user groups and special interest groups, which we promote and assist from launch through growth.

Sources: IIUG Board of Directors
Editors: Fred Hubbard, IIUG Board of Directors, and
Jean Georges Perrin, IIUG Board of Directors
For comments, please send an email to ug@iiug.org.
Published
Categorized as Insider

By Vicente Salvador

Board member since 2014, a user since 1989 and Informix fan. I'am software architect which allow me to combine technical and business skills.