IIUG Insider (Issue #158) – August 2013

Highlights: IIUG Announces 2014 IIUG Conference

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:

 


Editorial Back to top

Between now and May 2014 the IIUG conference will be at the center stage of the Insider. The IIUG conference team will keep you updated with the greatest and latest conference news. We hope moving to Miami will be an advantage to EMEA and Latin America attendees. Shorter and cheaper flights and a smaller time difference.

 

Miami is a great location. The JW Marriott is a beautiful hotel and it is going to be a fabulous conference. Take my advice and register early to ensure you get a room at the hotel. We hope the number of attendees will exceed the hotel capacity so make sure you are at the conference hotel and save yourself the daily travel.

Between now and our conference there is the major IBM Data Management event of the year. The IBM Information On Demand conference will take place in Las Vegas November 3-7. If you are attending don’t miss the Informix party on Sunday November 3.

September 5 is the Jewish New Year. When you will receive this issue it will be 5774 according to our count. I would like to wish you all a happy new year or as we say in Hebrew, Shana Tova.

Gary Ben-Israel
IIUG Insider Editor


Highlights Back to top

IIUG Announces 2014 IIUG Conference

The International Informix Users Group (IIUG) would like to announce the 2014 IIUG Informix conference, which will be held April 27- May 1, 2014 at the JW Marriott, Brickell Ave, Miami, FL, USA. This year’s conference hopes to follow the 2013 conference schedule, with a kick off welcome reception Sunday evening April 27 at the hotel. The opening session will begin on Monday morning April 28. The conference will continue through Wednesday late afternoon and offer the complimentary conference tutorials to all paid attendees on Thursday May 1. We have purposely given you Wednesday evening off so that if you are staying for the tutorials you can visit famous South Beach or enjoy the Latin flare and fun Miami offerings.

This year’s conference team is excited to move to the east coast of the USA. We expect the conference will be completely sold out. Miami is an airport hub to South America, a major airport hub to Europe for American Airlines and for One World airline alliance.

The JW Marriott Hotel Miami has received numerous recognitions including, Best Design Award by Marriott International, Overall Guest Satisfaction Award, Connoisseur’s Choice by Resorts & Great Hotels, and the Wine Spectator Award 2007-2010. Being selected One of the World’s Best Business Hotels by Travel & Leisure Magazine is one of the most recent accolades. The JW Marriott Hotel Miami offers a one-of-a-kind experience that allows you to enjoy the comforts of home during your stay. This award-winning downtown Miami hotel blends the features of a premier conference and meeting facility with timeless elegance, thoughtful amenities and award-winning service. Elegantly furnished guest rooms and suites offer the finest details, including marble tubs, high-speed Internet and flat-screen televisions. Relaxation is as close as the luxurious spa and the unique stainless steel pool.

For more information, visit the official conference web site at http://www.iiug2014.org or read all about it in the monthly IIUG Insider newsletter.

See you in Miami, FL, USA
April 27 – May 1, 2014


Conference corner Back to top

A quick summary of the Keynote sessions this year!

Business Analytics
Winning in the era of smart with game-changing innovations from IBM Business Analytics
Les Rechan, General Manager, IBM Business Analytics

Information Management
Information Management with Speed, Simplicity and Confidence
Bob Picciano, General Manager, IBM Information Management

Enterprise Content Management
Smarter content. New insights. Better outcomes.
Doug Hunt, Enterprise Content Management Business Leader

Business Leadership
The Forward Thinker: Creating Value through Big Data & Analytics
Moe Trebuchon , Partner – North America BAO Service Line Leader

To register and to know more details, click here.

Early Bird Registration for Information On Demand 2013

Register with the Early Bird discount for the best savings between now and September 13. Register today.

Conference hotel accommodations are limited and are on a first-come, first-served basis. Please arrange your accommodations on-line as part of the registration process.


Developer corner Back to top

Informix Chat with the Lab

Topic: Combining Structured and Unstructured Data for Powerful, Big Data Enterprise Applications
Date: Tuesday September 24th, 8:30 AM Pacific, 10:30 AM Central, 11:30 AM Eastern, 4:30 PM London, 5:30 PM Paris
Time: 10:30 am – 12:00 pm (Central Time)
Presented by: Jerry Keesee – Director, IBM Informix Database Development (IBM)
John Miller III – Informix Architect (IBM)

NoSQL databases are known for their ability to store rich, unstructured document data for ready access by burgeoning web and mobile applications, but their lack of support for relational database concepts limits their use in mission-critical, enterprise applications.

Now, developers of web and mobile applications no longer have to sacrifice reliability and transactional integrity when dealing with semi-structured and unstructured data. They can instead build compelling Web and mobile applications utilizing NoSQL storage and query concepts along with traditional SQL.

Attend this webcast to hear how enterprises, large and small, can develop applications that bridge the gap etween new computing technologies designed for big data, cloud, and mobile computing, with their enterprise world of relational data.

Register for this event here.

For questions about this event, contact the host at mckeithe@us.ibm.com.


Informix news Back to top

Technical articles

Publications for the IBM Informix 12.10 family of products: This document contains links to publications, including online information, PDF files, release notes, and more, for the IBM) Informix) 12.10 family of products, including client products and Informix DataBlade) modules. To know more, click here.

Publications for IBM Informix Enterprise Hypervisor Edition 12.10: This document contains links to English publications, including online information, release notes, and PDF files, for IBM Informix Enterprise Hypervisor Edition 12.10. To know more, click here.

Solution to a technical issue: IDS install returns: lax.nl.message.vm.not.loaded = The installer either could not find a Java VM, or the Java VM on this system is too old. To know more, click here.

onpload ipload HPL onpladm data looks corrupted and will not load : You used onpload, ipload, HPL, or onpladm to unload data from a table. You try to load it into your target table but no rows are loaded. You look at the file and see that it is not all readable, ASCII data but has control characters and is not very readable. To know about the solution, click here.

Proof of Technology: Introduction to Informix: This Proof of Technology will introduce the student to the basic architecture and functionality of the Informix database engine. Concepts such as logical and physical design will be discussed along with best practices for implementation, monitoring, backup and recovery and other basic day-to-day operations. To know more, click here.

IBM Data Magazine articles

Big Data and the Internet of Everything: A brave new world of possibilities. See more here.

Three Data Categories Likely Missing in Your Data Warehouse : Both data warehouse managers and data scientists should jointly evaluate these potential sources of useful predictors. See more here.

Ten Years Later, Does IT Matter? Taking a look back on Nicholas Carr’s seminal article from 2003. See more here.

IBM was the biggest Big Data vendor in 2012 (by revenues)

CIO.com
August 12

IBM was the biggest Big Data vendor in 2012 by revenues, with $1.3 billion from Big Data-related products and services, according to a recent Wikibon report. Offerings include server and storage hardware, database software, analytics applications, and associated services. Best known products are the DB2, Informix and InfoSphere database platforms, and Cognos and SPSS analytics applications. IBM also supports the Hadoop open source data analytics platform.

View the article.

Blackouts and Shortages: How Much Will it Cost Texas CIOs?/span>

CIO Zone

Power outages have been an on-going problem in Texas, especially during the overheated summer months. Damage to equipment, from thunder storms, cause the bulk of the outages; increased consumer demand, on an already overtaxed grid, are also a large contributing factor.

The system uses IBM?s Informix database software, which can load meter data 20 times faster than the current system. The upgrade will not only provide faster data access, but because it uses a time-series structured data management system, it will reduce data storage needs by 70%.

View the article.


Informix corner Back to top

IBM CIO Forum and Executive Infobahn

IBM CIO Forum and Executive Infobahn is coming to a city near you! Register today for this Free workshop – Select a date and city that works best for you.

To know more click here

Informix user group meeting

09/04/2013 Quito, Ecuador Learn more
09/05/2013 Caracas, Venezuela Learn more
09/10/2013 Stockholm, Sweden Register here

Informix 12.1 Roadshows

Be sure to register for one of the no-charge technical events designed to give you insight into IBM Informix 12.1 technology that solves some of the toughest business problems in the world today. Register today!

Seattle: September 16 & 17
Atlanta: September 19 & 20
Montreal: September 25 & 26
Phoenix: October 3 & 4

To register, click here.


Support corner Back to top

After an upgrade query running slow

You have upgraded to Informix 11.70.xC3 or higher version. After upgrade encountered some of your queries running slow. The common observation, a query was using index path prior to upgrade and running faster. After an upgrade the same query is doing a sequential scan. Using an index directive the query uses the index and runs much faster than the sequential scan. However, the index path has a higher estimated cost associated with it than the sequential scan.

Also, after an upgrade it could be seen that the optimizer chooses a different index in the newer version of Informix than it did in the prior version and causing the query to run slower.

A newer costing functionality was added in 11.70.FC3 and higher in the 11.70 family. This functionality was added to account for the seek time required to traverse an index (especially large indexes). There were situations where queries using an index would take longer to return than a sequential scan because of all the I/O involved.

You can control the new costing functionality using the OPT_SEEK_FACTOR configuration parameter. This parameter allows to set the “weight” of an I/O seek cost. The range is 0 to 25 and default is 6. Making it lower causes the seek cost to be lower which lowers the estimated cost of using an index path.

You can revert to the old costing method by setting OPT_SEEK_FACTOR to 0 in the ONCONFIG file.

– Grant Flander


Calendar of events Back to top

September – 2013
Date Event Location Contact
4 Colorado Informix User Group Meeting Denver, Colorado
4 Informix User Group Meeting Quito, Ecuador Louis Cherian
5 IBM Informix Infobahn Piscataway, New Jersey Anita McKeithen
5 Informix User Group Meeting Caracas, Venezuela Louis Cherian
10 Swedish Informix User Group Meeting Stockhom, Sweden
12 French Informix User Group Meeting IBM, Paris, France Khaled Bentebal
12 IBM Informix Infobahn Los Angeles, California Anita McKeithen
16-17 2013 Informix 12.10 Technical Roadshow Seattle, Washington Carlton Doe
19-20 2013 Informix 12.10 Technical Roadshow Atlanta, Georgia Carlton Doe
24 Informix User Group Meeting Sofia, Bulgaria
25-26 2013 Informix 12.10 Technical Roadshow Montreal, Canada Carlton Doe
12-13 2013 Informix Technical Roadshow London, England Scott Pickett
17-18 2013 Informix Technical Roadshow Paris, France Scott Pickett
October – 2013
Date Event Location Contact
3-4 2013 Informix Technical Roadshow Phoenix, Arizona Carlton Doe
November – 2013
Date Event Location Contact
3-7 IBM Information on Demand 2013 Las Vegas, Nevada
5 IBM Informix Infobahn Dallas, Texas Anita McKeithen
12 IBM Informix Infobahn Chicago, Illinois Anita McKeithen

 


Informix resources Back to top

IBM Informix home page

http://www.informix.com or directly at: http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/informix/

Informix blogs and wikis

I am trying something new on this section. I will first mention the blogs and wikis that have been updated during the last month. Blogs and wikis that have not been updated for over 6 months will be removed.

Blogs and Wikis that have been updated during the last month

More Blogs and Wikis

Forums, groups, videos, and magazines

There is now an Informix group on LinkedIn. The group is called “Informix Supporter”, so anyone loving Informix can join, from current IBM employees, former Informix employees, to users. It will also be a good occasion to get in touch with others or long-time-no-seen friends. If you fancy showing the Informix logo on your profile, join.


Useful links Back to top

/quicklinks.html


Closing and credits Back to top

The International Informix Users Group (IIUG) is an organization designed to enhance communications between its worldwide user community and IBM. The IIUG’s membership database now exceeds 25,000 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
IBM Corp.
Editors: Gary Ben-Israel
Rhonda Hackenburg

For comments, please send an email to gary@iiug.org.