IIUG Insider (Issue #224) March 2019

Highlights: Save the Date – IIUG World 2019 – September 22-26, 2019

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) Editorial

The new Board is up to speed. Many new things are coming.

But, the major news is the new Informix 14.10 release. Stronger, faster, more flexible and more.

I think this is the clearest message possible that Informix is alive. IBM and HCL are working hand in hand delivering a better product.

Gary Ben-Israel

IIUG Insider Editor

IIUG Board of Directors

gary@iiug.org

2) Highlights

2.1 Comments from the new IIUG President

Spring has Sprung! At least here in Kansas City, and to me that always mean new beginnings and changes.

As many of you know, Stuart Litel has stepped down as President of the IIUG. He served in that capacity for 15 years and did so many wonderful things for the Informix product and in turn for us, the Informix users and supporters. I know I could never fill Stuart’s shoes, but I promise I will do my best to run this organization and work to keep Informix relevant in the market and our lives. Thank you Stuart for your years of dedication and service!

There are a lot of exciting things going on right now, especially around the release of Informix 14.10! More information to follow in this edition of the Insider, so keep on reading.

On a final note, I am excited to announce that IIUG World Conference 2019 will take place September 22 – 26, 2019, at the Torrance Marriott Redondo Beach, California!

Stay tuned for more information, but please put it on your calendar NOW, because you won’t want to miss it. There will be tons of information on IBM Informix 14.10. And, as always, dynamic and interesting presentations, Hands on Labs, networking, good food and good company.

All my best,

Cindy Lichtenauer

IIUG President

2.2 Informix 14.10 is GA and has allot to offer

Don’t let your edge computing fall behind; see what the all new IBM Informix 14.10 has to offer.

IBM Informix 14.10 has doubled down on addressing several improvements like speed, simplicity, security, and analytics. During this webinar our experts will delve into each of these enhancements, including:

  • Up to 5x faster replication and 10% faster OLTP transactions from previous versions of IBM Informix
  • Easier management of multiple databases across a number of instance with the new InformixHQ graphical interface technology.
  • ARM v8 platform support, sub-second timestamps and more geodetic and projection support
  • Increased security for encryption keys and Transport Layer Security
  • Easier migration of existing instances to new IBM Informix versions or hardware with new migrate server feature
  • New VPC pricing metric for easier license monitoring in virtual and cloud environments.
  • And many more…

Don’t miss your chance to hear how IBM Informix 14.10 will prepare you for analytics on the edge, in the cloud, and on-premises.

Register Now

Title: IBM Informix 14.10 –Upgrade to higher performance, lower admin, and more robust analytics

Date: Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Time: 11:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Gary Ben-Israel

3) Conference Corner

3.1 Save the Date – IIUG World 2019 – September 22-26, 2019

IIUG World 2019 will be hosted by the Torrance Marriott, Redondo Beach, CA USA. and will be held September 22nd – 26th, 2019

This is a beautiful hotel and is just minutes from California’s Pacific Coast Highway and miles of beaches. Don’t forget all the local attractions: Disneyland, Universal Studios, Knott’s Berry Farm, etc.. It is convenient to LAX and Long Beach Airports. Find out more about this hotel www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/laxtr-torrance-marriott-redondo-beach/.

We are updating our website in preparation of IIUG 2019 speaker submissions. Our goal is to have speaker registration open by mid-April.

We will send an email announcing the submission website is open and provide you instructions regarding where to submit a brief overview of your topic. The email will also share the benefits of becoming an IIUG World presenter. We would like to thank our past speakers who helped make our IIUG events the best Informix event offered and would be happy to have you return. We are always looking for new speakers who might have a passion for Informix and/or related software to share their knowledge. So, start thinking of some topics you are interested in sharing with our IIUG attendees and help us make this event the best ever.

Look for emails and changes to the website www.iiug.org.

See you in September,

IIUG World Planning Committee

4) Informix Corner

4.1 Compare the IBM Informix v.14.10 editions

With the release of Informix v.14.10 in March 2019, Informix continued building on its “Simply Powerful” foundation and is now “Stronger, Faster and more Flexible.” To highlight just a few things in Informix v.14.10:

Stronger — Informix expanded its native data encryption at rest feature by adding support for off-site encryption key management services such as AWS Remote Keystore. In addition, Informix now provides a simpler and more secure method to encrypt and decrypt instance backups automatically regardless of the encryption state of the spaces themselves. Similar to the encrypted data at rest feature, the initial release of backup encryption supports Amazon Remote Keystore services. Support for KMIP services for both types of operations will be coming soon. Informix v.14.10 also supports Amazon V.4 Authentication allowing customers to use a broader range of Amazon regions. Other cloud services also use this API allowing Informix to connect with them as well.

Faster – a lot of work has been done throughout the engine to increase performance and scalability but none more so than with Java and Java UDR processing and in elements of Informix’s High Availability cluster processing. Sending and applying transactions to secondary instances has been completely re-written and optimized for performance under the most trying conditions. Performance tests show over a 500% increase in throughput when compared to Informix v.12 benefiting all customers large or small. Java and Java UDR processing enhancements include support for the latest Java, JDBC and other library packages and standards. The Informix J-Foundation component supporting instance-based Java UDR processing was almost completely re-written to the latest standards and APIs including using the better and more efficient SLF4J with Logback logging framework. While described in more detail in the edition-specific descriptions, the Informix Workgroup and Enterprise Editions received significant increases in supported resources and functionality allowing customers to do even more work without increasing their license fees or having to upgrade their hardware.

More Flexible – It starts with how Informix is distributed and installed. Instead of separate binaries for each Informix edition, there is a single universal binary but edition-specific license files which control which features are enabled. This allows customers to download one binary bundle and use it throughout their enterprise. With the appropriate license file, customers can select which edition to activate or can easily change editions without extensive downtime or having to re-install the entire system potentially overwriting critical files. Customers using spatial technology now have the ability to choose the geospatial referencing and projection system, including customer-specific or developed systems, that best meet their needs. Customers can also define and use the spatial measurement that works best for their environment (e.g. the US foot or the international foot). Informix v.14.10 supports sub-second GPS readings for spatio-temporal applications. Customers can also create geo-fences for GPS values to easily detect erroneous or potentially fraudulent GPS readings passed to the engine. Informix v.14.10 makes it easier to migrate existing instances (with their data) to newer Informix versions or hardware (including heterogenous migrations) with the new migrate server functionality. Finally, individual sessions and their owners can be monitored more easily with session-specific tokens.

And more – Finally, Informix v.14.10 includes the InformixHQ (IHQ) graphical tool which replaces the deprecated OpenAdminTool (OAT). It is an elegant and modular tool giving users the ability to monitor instances and the components (disk, memory, load, etc.) they feel are most important to them. The tool can be used to administer instances as well. Written using HTML5 and other current web and other technologies, IHQ provides a dashboard view across a number of instances and their statistics rather than the single instance view OAT provided. IHQ is bundled as a feature of the Informix v.14.10 engine but will soon be available for, and support, Informix v.12 customers.

The full blog is on the IIUG website: /en/2019/03/14/compare-informix/

5) RFE Corner

IBM has created a new RFE – Request For Enhancements website.

It looks cool and is easier to work with

https://ibmanalytics.ideas.aha.io/?project=INFX&sort=popular

Please visit this site vote for your favorite enhancements and place new request.

Added last month:

Topic

Votes

Status

Support for ADO.net

1

Need review

Certification of Informix ESQL/Cobol on RedHat Linux 7.2

11

Need review

Gary Ben-Israel

6) Informix Resources

IBM Informix home page
www.informix.com or directly at: http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/informix/

IBM Informix community
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSGU8G_12.1.0/com.ibm.community.doc/community.htm

6.1 Informix Blogs and Wikis

Blogs and Wikis that have been updated during the last month

More Blogs and Wikis

6.2 Social Media

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/25049

Twitter : https://twitter.com/iiug

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/IIUG.Informix

Informix IoT Channel : https://ibm.biz/BdH2nm

6.3 Forums, Groups, Videos, and Magazines<

  • The IIUG forums at /forums/technical.php
  • Informix Marketing channel on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/user/informixmarketing?feature=results_main
  • IBM DATABASE MAGAZINE at http://www.ibmdatabasemag.com
  • Credentials, the IBM Certification Newsletter at http://www-03.ibm.com/certify/email/201307credentials.shtml
  • 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. To join, simply go to:

    http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/25049/5E4B2048E558

Closing and Credits

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 Information 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

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.