IIUG Insider (Issue #184) October 2015

Highlights: Is your Business ready for the Internet of Things?

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

I was planning to write a recap on the IBM Insight conference in Las Vegas. Unfortunately I was not able to attend Insight 2015 and the IIUG October board meeting. My wife is not well and I preferred to stay with her. I hope things will be better for me in the near future and I will be able to share Informix news with you again.

Gary Ben-Israel


Highlights Back to top

Is your Business ready for the Internet of Things?

Are you ready for the Internet of Things? Download this special white paper to learn how IBM Informix offers key capabilities to address the data management challenges of big data, cloud and mobile computing.

NEW White Paper


Conference corner Back to top

IIUG 2016 – Call for Speakers is now open

The IIUG Planning Committee has opened the speaker registration site for IIUG 2016. We are ready to accept your presentation proposals for this premier Informix event. The Sawgrass Marriott Golf Resort and Spa in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL will be hosting IIUG 2016 beginning Wednesday May 4th and running through Sunday May 8th, 2016.

The Sawgrass Marriott Golf resort combines contemporary accommodations and an amazing selection of dining options with a spa, meeting space, and 99 holes of championship golf over 65 acres. As a guest of the beach resort, you can enjoy access to The Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, one of the PGA TOUR’s most venerable courses, home of THE PLAYERS Championship and the PGA Tour Headquarters.

The IIUG Planning Committee is seeking technical professionals as well as end users from the Informix community who are interested in sharing their knowledge, expertise, and experience with Informix and how they use it to improve their day-to-day business performance. This event stands out from many other industry events of this type due to the diversity of our speakers and the information they are willing to share with our attendees.

IIUG 2016 will follow the same format as last year’s event. The first 3 days will be a series of technical and user sessions, hands-on labs and general sessions. The last day will consist of ½-day tutorials.

Presentation proposals should highlight Informix technical solutions, real world experiences and/or trade tips you want to share. PLEASE NOTE: The IIUG Planning Committee uses your proposal to determine what sessions will be presented at IIUG 2016, so your proposal should be brief but provide enough detail about your topic. Multiple presentations are encouraged. The actual presentation will not be needed until March. Speaker guidelines can be found here if you need additional information.

All selected speakers will receive a complimentary pass to IIUG 2016. This pass will include: the Wednesday night Welcome Reception, access to all sessions from Thursday through Saturday, the receptions on Thursday and Friday nights, and access to the Exhibit area. The pass does not include the Sunday tutorials, however, they can be purchased for a nominal fee.

The deadline for submitting your presentation proposal is November 30, 2015. For your convenience speaker logins have been retained for those who submitted a presentation proposal for IIUG 2015. Please submit your presentation proposal and biography today for consideration for IIUG 2016. Submit your proposal here.

If you are still unsure about speaking at IIUG 2016 or you don’t have a topic you want to present, submit your request for assistance at conference@iiug.org.

Registration will soon be open. Check out IIUG 2016 for additional information.

We look forward to seeing you at IIUG 2016.

IIUG 2016 Planning Committee


Support corner Back to top

It sounds like a paradox: SQL with NOSQL

When a DBA runs a SQL script, it is usually passed through an application interface, such as dbaccess. IBM Informix began providing dbaccess with 3.70 CSDK, so that a SQL routine can also be run on the client side. On older CSDK versions and in some operating system environments, that API option may not integrate well with other tools. A query can be run on client or server (with appropriate authentication) using the REST API with very little setup.

1. In the wire properties file, at minimum, set:

url=jdbc:informix-sqli://<ipnumber>:<tcp port#>/sysmaster:INFORMIXSERVER=<servername>;USER=informix;PASSWORD=<password>
listener.type=rest
listener.hostName=localhost
# listener.hostName=* <-(use this host if not using local loopback)
listener.port=8080
security.sql.passthrough=true

2. Tell the JRE where your configuration is:

java -jar jsonListener.jar -start -config <your.properties file>

We are ready to run. As a sample, here is a query which uses the (UNIX) curl command to fetch users, session numbers, and the database they are accessing:

curl -G “http://localhost:8080/sysmaster/system.sql” (http://localhost:8080/sysmaster/system.sql) –data-urlencode ‘query={$sql:”select username,odb_sessionid,odb_dbname from syssessions,sysopendb where syssessions.sid=sysopendb.odb_sessionid order by username”}’

Example output:

[{“username”:”informix”,”odb_sessionid”:30,”odb_dbname”:”sysadmin”},
{“username”:”informix”,”odb_sessionid”:31,”odb_dbname”:”sysadmin”},
{“username”:”informix”,”odb_sessionid”:30,”odb_dbname”:”sysmaster”},
{“username”:”informix”,”odb_sessionid”:63,”odb_dbname”:”sysmaster”},
{“username”:”informix”,”odb_sessionid”:29,”odb_dbname”:”sysadmin”},
{“username”:”informix”,”odb_sessionid”:32,”odb_dbname”:”sysadmin”}]

Note – you can substitute any valid expression (for the “…” ) in the section: query={$sql:”…”}

For more information start here.

– David Jay


RFE Corner Back to top

Just in case you are not aware, some time ago IBM created a public website to collect the requests for new features directly from users. The RFE (Requests For Enhancements) website is included in developerWorks. You can access it here.

Once you logged in with your usual IBM ID, choose “Information Management” in the Brand dropdown box and “Informix Servers” or “Client Products” in the Products dropdown box.

The interesting thing is that any request, including your request, if you place one, are submitted to be voted on. This means the RFEs that receive more votes have a greater chance to be considered by the architecture and development teams for further consideration. In other words, this IS the opportunity to provide enhancement ideas even if you are not the biggest IBM customer on the planet Earth.

Some RFEs will be of great interest, others will not seem useful to you. This is why your opinion is important. Do not hesitate to vote and place comments!

The idea of the RFE corner is to provide a digest on new Informix RFEs and make those RFEs more visible and accessible for the community, so that you can vote for them in a faster and easier way. By participating actively in this website, IBM will have solid and useful elements from the customer base to introduce new functionality to Informix product.

Please also note that now on we can see the last comments of the IBM Lab about each RFE, and its status now appears clearly.

Register here

(Login at DeveloperWorks to see the RFEs.)

New RFEs for October 2015

The activity has been rather low this month. We can see that the Backup from RSS or HDR server is again progressing. Some other interesting features are also requested. To be followed next month.

Request to track and save a time stamp for last time an index was used. Need to identify un-used indexes
Votes: 15
A need exist to cleanup unused indexes. so they can be dropped. This can be an added field to a system catalog table.

Add functionality to speed up reading pages into buffers
Votes: 1
This RFE is logged because a performance problem arise with IBM Cognos software with Informix. The business complaints that when the first runner of a report runs in 20minutes and subsequent runs will be 2 minutes.

Remove limitation on TEXT and CLOB datatype to have the same functionality as LVARCHAR
Votes: 1

Top 25 RFEs (by votes)

Backup from RSS or HDR Secondaries using ontape, onunload, onbar, dbexport Under Consideration 3 6 30
Implementation of regular expressions (adding to LIKE/MATCHES functions) Under Consideration 0 2 20
Obtain the query plan of a running query Under Consideration 0 3 16
Implement CREATE OR REPLACE option for stored procedures Under Consideration 2 3 16
Request to track and save a time stamp for last time an index was used. Need to identify un-used indexes. Submitted 0 1 15
Add constant to centralized Key of ER Consolidation Model Submitted 0 1 13
Improve performance of L1/L2 backups Submitted 0 2 11
ALTER owner of database objects after creation Submitted 0 2 10
Include the regexp datablade into the Informix product Submitted 1 1 8
Backup Individual database, not entire instance Submitted 0 2 8
CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW Submitted 0 1 7
Option to get a warning if strings are truncated during an insert Under Consideration 3 3 6
Clone a database Under Consideration 0 2 6
Enable defined limits on sqltrace Submitted 0 1 6
suppress fast repeating event from running alarmprogram for each event Submitted 0 1 5
Enable HDR Secondary to perform archives Submitted 1 1 4
character truncate problem in Informix 11.5 Duplicate 1 1 3
Print session info for long transaction in msg log or DUMPDIR Submitted 0 1 3
add update_ipa task to future Informix 11.70 release Submitted 0 1 3
TS Rolling Window Containers dropping dormant window should be similar to DETACH FRAGMENT Submitted 0 1 2
odbc support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1 Submitted 0 1 2
Dropping Primary Keys Submitted 0 1 2
Add functionality to speed up reading pages into buffers Submitted 0 1 1
Remove limitation on TEXT and CLOB datatype to have the same functionality as LVARCHAR Submitted 0 1 1
Informix support for Oracle Linux (RHCK) Submitted 0 1 1

Do not forget to vote for one or several of those RFE’s if they fit your requirements. The more vote, the more chances that the Dev Team will seriously consider the request.

You can access each RFE by clicking on the above links. At the bottom of each RFE page you will find a hyperlink to vote for it. You will see the Request stats, including number of votes for this request, on the right side of the request page. The more votes, the greater the chance an enhancement will be addressed by the Development Team, taking into consideration the general interest.

Take some time to examine the full list and vote for the enhancements you would like to see implemented.

Gary Ben-Israel


Informix corner Back to top

WAIUG meeting

Greetings Fellow Informix enthusiasts:

We are excited to announce the next WAIUG meeting will be a half day meeting held on Tuesday, November 17, 2015 in Tysons Corner, VA.

We have selected 3 technical topics which include:

  • Genero – Simple migration of traditional 4GL to more modern offerings by Four Js
  • Using ER and Grid by Ramanathan Sivaguru, IBM
  • Informix with future technologies – discussing Informix use of NoSQL, connections with Node-RED and the larger usage with the Internet of things (IoT) by Tom Beebe

Location:

IBM TEC Center
8401 Greensboro Drive, Suite 120
McLean, VA 22102
8:30 am – Noon

***Parking at the IBM TEC center parking garage costs $10. – The Spring Hill Metro Station on the new Silver Line is 2 blocks away (about a 5-10 minute walk) from the IBM TEC center.

A light breakfast will be served prior to the meeting and lunch will be provided at the conclusion.

IMPORTANT: please register by Monday, November 16th to ensure we have an accurate count when placing our food order.

Register for this event or obtain additional information on the WAIUG Website.

We hope to see you there.

James Edmiston, President WAIUG


Informix News Back to top

IBM just signed a brilliant deal with ARM to ‘watch’ billions of devices on the Internet

Business Insider UK

IBM launches Apache Spark cloud service

ZDNet

International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM)’s Cloud Service On Apache Spark Rolls Out

INVEST CORRECTLY


Calendar of events Back to top

November – 2015
Date Event Location Contact
17 Washington Area Informix Users Group Meeting Washington DC James Edmiston

 


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

Blogs and Wikis that have been updated during the last month

More Blogs and Wikis

Forums, groups, videos, and magazines

  • The IIUG forums
  • Informix Marketing channel on YouTube
  • IBM Data Magazine
  • Credentials, the IBM Certification Newsletter
  • The Informix Zone
  • 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.
Editor: Gary Ben-Israel

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

 

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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.