IIUG Insider (Issue #187) January 2016

Highlights: Don’t let the Early Bird fly by – Register for IIUG 2016 by midnight Thursday, February 4 (EST)

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

This is the first Issue for 2016. I’m looking forward for a great year. However, you need to look hard to find Informix presence. I hope that during 2016 we will see more visibility. I’ll try to do my best providing you with any information I can gather about Informix. Your help is highly appreciated.

Gary Ben-Israel


Highlights Back to top

Don’t let the Early Bird fly by – Register for IIUG 2016 by midnight Thursday, February 4 (EST)

Catch the Early Bird and save on what is by far the most significant event Informix of the year – IIUG 2016.

In our conference corner we will cover this event monthly. I hope many of you will attend this event and enjoy the unmatched technical education, networking, meetings with IBM executives, support engineers and Informix developers.

I’m looking forward to seeing old friends and colleagues and meeting many more of you at the Sawgrass Marriott Golf Resort & Spa.

Gary Ben-Israel


Conference corner Back to top

IIUG 2016 Early Bird Registration Ends Midnight February 4, 2016

You have until midnight (EST) Thursday, February 4, 2016 to register for IIUG 2016, at the Sawgrass Marriott Golf Resort in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Save $275 with early bird registration and increase your savings by an additional $100 with an IIUG Membership discount. If you are not currently an IIUG member and want to take advantage of the full early bird price, That is a total discount of $375! It is quick and easy and there is no fee. Becoming an IIUG member will not only increase your registration savings it will also allow you access to the Members Only section of the IIUG Website. The Member Only section permits you to download some of the latest IBM Informix products available, as well as access to IIUG-only utilities written by DBAs for DBAs. Join today.

Once again this year’s registration includes a full day of tutorials on Sunday, May 8th. These tutorials are included at NO CHARGE for all paid attendees. So don’t miss out on this wonderful opportunity to expand your training dollars.

Need some help with the boss on why you should attend the largest gathering of Informix users in the world? We have created a special Justification document to help you with this.

The speaker submissions for IIUG 2016 have been overwhelming. The submissions cover a multitude of topics pertinent to Informix users, developers and administrators, including the many popular Informix features, as well as tried and true “must have” topics like those involving maximizing your system performance while minimizing system downtime. Topics like NoSQL and other development topics will be offered. Our speakers are some of the best the Informix community has to offer, and the list includes several new speakers. The IIUG planning committee has completed the review of all submitted presentations to select the very best sessions, hands-on labs and tutorials. The sessions we’ve chosen include interesting and relevant topics that can be used to reinforce your professional skills and keep current in today’s changing market. Remember, IIUG 2016 is not “Just For DBAs”: Bring your application developers too!

Selected speakers have been notified and we are beginning to receive confirmations back from these speakers. We will begin posting the confirmed sessions on Training pages of the website. We will continue to update the Training pages concerning sessions, hands-on labs and tutorials as other speakers submit their confirmation.

See you in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida May 4 – 8, 2016.

The IIUG 2016 Planning Committee

Contact us with any questions.


Support corner Back to top

Lunch, by a different name

In middle English, collation refers to the concept of bringing food together (to eat – such as in a light lunch). In database terms, it refers to organizing in a standard manner. It is not indexing. Instead, we are talking about the rules that go together to help decide ‘how’ to arrange the index.

If you use a Global Language codeset for UniCode (GLU), the collation order can have hundreds of variations. For example, in Greek (as I recall), the letter ‘gamma’ is third place. In English, our letter ‘g’ is 7th place. Of course, if we are not using Unicode, collation is only relevant to our current code page — Inserting a list of French or German words will have no alphabetizing difference in an us-ascii database.

In order to make collation work for the Unicode set we use, before the database is created, set USE_GLU=1 in the environment of your server. This tells the server and informs all SQL: 1) you are using Unicode and 2) expect a collation order (non-English codepage) variation. To assure collations work in Unicode among different API’s such as java or ODBC, place the values into fields of type nchar or nvarchar. With USE_GLU=1, Unicode data, and these two data types, the columns will bring stuff together for you (a collated, nice lunch), rather than regurgitating an error for you!

– 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.

Also in the area of IBM website, a new functionality has been released: MyNotifications. You will want to register this webpage in order to receive the notifications of your choice (new product defects, new patch release, new versions etc…, on the frequency of your choice (daily, weekly). I have registered a few days ago and will definitely keep registered, due to the value of the information delivered.

Register here

(Login at DeveloperWorks to see the RFEs.)

New RFEs for January 2016

Not much has been submitted this month, maybe due to weather conditions worldwide, or too active Xmas eve and New year’s Eve.

Support for common table expression (CTE)
Request for support of CTE, an SQL language extension that is used in Cognos
Votes: 1
Redbrick 32 and 64-bit drivers certified for IPV6 Protocol
Request for IPV6 support with both 32 and 64 redbrick drivers
Votes: 1
Support for nested CASE, PARTITION BY clause in the GROUP BY clause
Speaks by itself, request for extension of SQL language.
Votes: 1

Top 16 RFEs

Abstract Status Votes
In-Place Alter for varchar, lvarchar and boolean Under Consideration 38
Backup from RSS or HDR Secondaries using ontape, onunload, onbar, dbexport Under Consideration 33
SQL interface to obtain the temporary space usage (tables, hash, sorts…) Submitted 28
New feature to have FORCE_DDL_EXEC functionality for all DDL changes Submitted 22
Implementation of regular expressions (adding to LIKE/MATCHES functions) Under Consideration 21
Request to track and save a time stamp for last time an index was used. Nee… Submitted 20
Obtain the query plan of a running query Under Consideration 19
SQL interface to obtain the temporary space usage (tables, hash, sorts…) Declined 18
Implement CREATE OR REPLACE option for stored procedures Under Consideration 17
Need an onmode option to terminate orphaned, tightly coupled global transac… Under Consideration 14
ALTER owner of database objects after creation Submitted 14
Allow triggers install/updates without taking an outage for the box Under Consideration 13
Add constant to centralized Key of ER Consolidation Model Submitted 13
Ability to re-create views and procedures without dependent objects being d… Under Consideration 13
Backup Individual database, not entire instance Submitted 12

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.

Eric Vercelletto


Informix corner Back to top

Videos

Eurotech’s IoT gateway embeds Informix

IBM Informix 12.10.UC6 on a Raspberry Pi Zero

Simon – Pi Zero USB Gadget

SlideShare

Leveraging compute power at the edge – M2M solutions with Informix in the IoT

Security best practices for Informix

Informix on ARM and informix Timeseries – producing an Internet-of-Things solution


Informix News Back to top

Marvell Expands Andromeda Box Platform

PRNewswire: Marvell Expands Andromeda Box Platform Offering and Partners with Global System and Software Manufacturers to Accelerate Development of Connected Devices


Calendar of events Back to top

May – 2016
Date Event Location Contact
4-8 IIUG 2016 Sawgrass Marriott Golf Resort & Spa, at Ponte Vedra Beach. Florida conference@iiug.org

 


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

Social Media

Forums, Groups, Videos, and Magazines

  • The IIUG forums
  • Informix Marketing channel on YouTube
  • 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

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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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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.