| If you would like to add a feature request to this list, please email it to webcontent@iiug.org. |
| Top 10 requested features from the recent IIUG survey are highlighted and numbered in order of responses. |
| New features requested during the survey are all dated August 15, 2006. |
| |
| When |
# |
Rank |
Feature |
| 21-Jun-05 |
1 |
|
Create a new command that will complete outstanding
in-place alters on a table |
| 22-Jun-05 |
2 |
|
Rather than limiting replication from one server to
another, give an option for HDR from 1 primary to N secondary |
| 21-Jul-05 |
3 |
|
Change table owner |
| 23-Nov-05 |
4 |
|
B175153: "onstat -r 60 -" should include a
date/time in its output. |
| 14-Jan-05 |
5 |
|
Make the new 9.40 onpladm command work against a
7.31 database |
| 3-Dec-05 |
6 |
|
Give ability to set SQLSTATE from within a RAISE
EXCEPTION command |
| 8-Oct-05 |
7 |
|
Currently it is possible to create a database that
dbexport can export but dbimport cannot import, e.g. 32767 columns. Need to
increase SQL buffer from 64K to a larger one, say 2M. |
| 4-Dec-05 |
8 |
1 |
Automatic Update Statistics so that engine performs
this automatically as needed (similary to dostats written by Art Kagel).
|
| 4-Dec-05 |
9 |
|
Increase the Stored Procedure Language to all it to
be greater than 64K in length (perhaps 2Mb). |
| 4-Dec-05 |
10 |
|
Add ability to include simple functions to a
fragmentation schema e.g. FRAGMENT BY EXPRESSION month(tr_date=1) in frag1,
month(tr_date) in frag2 etc. |
| 5-Dec-05 |
11 |
|
Create a new "WITH ... AS" clause for
inline views. |
| 5-Dec-05 |
12 |
7 |
Make built in functions such as UPPER() invariant
for functional indexes. |
| 2-Jan-06 |
13 |
|
Give DBA the ability to limit the amount of memory
each single session can use. |
| 5-Jan-06 |
14 |
|
DRDA Connectivity from Informix<->DB2
(LUW/zOS) without using additional products like Informix Gateway for DRDA,
or a Wrapper in DB2 |
| 5-Jan-06 |
15 |
|
Remove the requirement for a column list in view
creation, i.e. "create view foo as select myfunc() as mycol"
instead of "create view foo (mycol) as select myfunc() as mycol". |
| 5-Jan-06 |
16 |
|
Optimize ANSI joins in views. |
| 6-Jan-06 |
17 |
|
Include n-tuple comparisons which is already part of
the sql standard. (a,b,c) > (1,2,3) |
| 6-Jan-06 |
18 |
8 |
Give a count distinct function that will work with
multiple columns, e.g. select count distinct (a,b,c) |
| 6-Jan-06 |
19 |
|
Allow shared named server side prepared statements:
CREATE NAMED PREPARED STATEMENT fetch_employee(employee_id) as select * from employee where employee_id = ? ; You could even assign priveledges to it. then in the application you would have something like: pStatement = getPreparedNamedStatement("fetch_employee"); |
| 1-Jan-06 |
20 |
5 |
Automatic table creation using existing column
definitions from another table (or join of multiple tables). CREATE TABLE x
AS SELECT a,b,.. |
| 1-Apr-06 |
21 |
|
Take function in XPS to UPDATE/DELETE with a join to
another table. |
| 10-May-06 |
22 |
|
Add the ability to have an email sent alarming that
a table is dropped. |
| 10-May-06 |
23 |
6 |
A method of doing a compare between the schemas of
two tables, which would create the code to adjust one schema to look
identical to the other. |
| 10-May-06 |
24 |
4 |
Add a message to the log file which includes the
date, time, and user name that dropped or modified a table. |
| 10-May-06 |
25 |
9 |
Fix the auditing utility to work better and with
less resources. |
| 10-May-06 |
26 |
|
Set up an easy way to see transaction counts for the
server, that can be used to compare the transactions per servers. Whatever
is set up would then give an apples to apples comparison with the same system
on a different server. Perhaps add it to onstat -p. (Currently this requires
combining a number of fields on this output). |
| 10-May-06 |
27 |
|
Allow the creation of multiple buffer pools of the
same size for the same instance. This could be used to separate the buffers
for different applications, or to distribute indexes and data buffer pools. |
| 10-May-06 |
28 |
|
Create ANSI Node Data blades. |
| 20-Jun-06 |
29 |
2 |
Create a table reorg command that would do an
initial check of existing disk space needed for a reorg, and then upon verify
the space exists would perform the reorg in an online mode. |
| 21-Jun-06 |
30 |
10 |
Give native support for XML. |
| 21-Jun-06 |
31 |
|
Give OLTP specific multiple Active/Active HDR. |
| 26-Jun-06 |
32 |
3 |
How about materialized views similar to how O does
it. |
| 12-Jul-06 |
33 |
|
Expand the current ability to create a new index
online to allow rebuilding existing indexes. Allow you to rebuild an index
(drop/create) online. Reason for a 24/7 system, if an index has for
example: 100 extents and you want to rebuild it, but it is on a large table,
100 million rows. Also allow this for "alter table add foreign
key", since if you need to drop/create an index that has a foreign key,
allow that to be done online also. Minimize the downtime that these
will take. |
| 4-Aug-06 |
34 |
|
Allow full oncheck functionality against an HDR
Secondary. |
| 4-Aug-06 |
35 |
|
Why doesn't Informix implement some sort of
timestamp type? Or put in an easier faster mechanism to do this? CreateTime
datetime year to second default current, ModifiyTime timestamp year to second |
| 15-Aug-06 |
36 |
|
better PHP + Apache2 support |
| 15-Aug-06 |
37 |
|
Rational Data Architect - Database modelling to
generate Entity Releationl Diagrams Micosoft Visual Studio - plugins to aid
development, we have these but we do not promote as much as we should
(including the Excel plugin) DB2 features to port MDC,MQT better OLAP
support for BI systems Extensibility, Object Translator to provide object
applicaiton to releational database table mapping Websphere Integeration -
promote it better Customer References - Most Important Benchmarks - Even
more important than MOST IMPORATNT , to show status against competitors
Microsoft, Oracle etc to show that this product is not really dead and that
we are ahead of the competitors |
| 15-Aug-06 |
38 |
|
Ability to disconnect a session as a global entity
and connect to that session from a different task maintaining cursor and
transaction contexts. Alternatively to be able to disconnect a transaction
or cursor context from the current session and reattach to it from another
session. This is similar to how mulitple connection pools can be used in a
threaded application but would mean moving the session name or context name
into the server and providing means to attach to such a named global context. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
39 |
|
- Enforce a definable limit on locks per session -
Create roles with password - Implement the XPS login/logout procedure -
Implement the XPS different indexing (bitmap...) - Create some kind of
'instance roles' to make a specific role spawn across dat |
| 15-Aug-06 |
40 |
|
something like Oracle's RAC clustering capability. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
41 |
|
1) Include more dynamic SQL Features in SPL. 2)
INFORMIX OUTER JOIN doesn't have same behavior as ANSI LEFT JOIN when you
filter a OUTER FIELD. It ignores filtering clause and ANSI does well. And
when you create a VIEW with ANSI SQL it behaves as INFORMIX OUTER JOIN. It is
not regular. we're using 9.40 FC7 |
| 15-Aug-06 |
42 |
|
Java 1.5 support for UDR. Sync JDBC driver and UDR
driver. Java UDR to return ResultSet. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
43 |
|
IBM should create a company called 'Informix'
giving the two databases their own direction. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
44 |
|
Support PAM (external authentication modules) in 64
bit version Informix for AIX (currently supported on Solaris, Linux, both 32
and 64 bit, as applicable. On HP-UX and AIX, PAM is supported in 32 bit
mode only) |
| 15-Aug-06 |
45 |
|
Killing session by sql, like oracle: ALTER SYSTEM
KILL SESSION <SID>; |
| 15-Aug-06 |
46 |
|
Maintain Informix-4GL compatibility with gcc.
Specifically, make c4gl work with gcc 4.x. Give Informix-4GL ability to
easily generate HTML or PDF. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
47 |
|
Oracle Wait Interface (dbms_system.set_ev(sid,
serial#, 10046, 0, '');) Very useful for analyze perfomance problems.
|
| 15-Aug-06 |
48 |
|
Provide a better storage manager than ISM. ISM is
limited and is a 'crippled' version of Legato. We use Legato for filesystem
backups so the two products conflict on configuration directories, etc. ISM
is very difficult to set up and manage. We are always running the risk that
our third party vendor (BMC) will cease supporting IDS. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
49 |
|
ability to alter fragment on system catalog tables |
| 15-Aug-06 |
50 |
|
Would like to have the Change Data Capture tables
just like the 'O' has Improve on Security |
| 15-Aug-06 |
51 |
|
change update syntax for mix update and select
query for records which was affected by update. for example: update
employes set bonus= bonus+ 100 where department_id= 1001 into ((temp
table) | (cursor [with hold])) (<any columns from employes table
delimited by coma>) |
| 15-Aug-06 |
52 |
|
Dynamic SPL: Select * from <string_variable> |
| 15-Aug-06 |
53 |
|
Add an option in oninit and onmode commands to skip
logical recovery. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
54 |
|
one command to upgrade, makes backups of files,
verifies any problems, performs the upgrade seamlessly. Gui tool for things
like imported restores as well as other restore processes. i-star. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
55 |
|
We need built-in real-time SQL tracing utility Also
- it would be very nice to be able to execute SPL statements as normal SQL
code (as in Oracle PL/SQL). |
| 15-Aug-06 |
56 |
|
Change default behavior of temporary tables to
non-logging, based on a config parameter (I believe I heard this is in the
works). |
| 15-Aug-06 |
57 |
|
Better GUI management tool with capabilities on
order of SQL Server and some of the ISA capabilities. Need better tool
included, not seperate product. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
58 |
|
1. Ability to control max number of locks by user so
that one user cannot consume all locks and block the engine. 2. DateTime
stamp in most/all sysmaster tables so that you can determine how long some of
the activities have been in progress. ie., how long has this user been
locking specific rows (time to kill their session) |
| 15-Aug-06 |
59 |
|
Port to run on Mac OS X |
| 15-Aug-06 |
60 |
|
For Informix SE, I should be able to export the
database without regard to locking. MySQL and other db engines allow this. It
makes maintenance difficult. Informix SE needs better install and order of
what get installed in what order so that tools work. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
61 |
|
Informix MUST do the column encryption thing better.
A LOT better. How about having all users with a certain role automatically
have the columns encrypted/decrypted for them? Otherwise, it's useless in
any way that my application could use. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
62 |
|
Ability to change all onconfig parameters online.
Ability to switch on/off |
| 15-Aug-06 |
63 |
|
a tool or command to release space nonused ,avoiding
to do drop/create/load table |
| 15-Aug-06 |
64 |
|
How about remembering those of us who use Standard
Engine! I need the ability to query multiple Informix databases in the same
query and to be able to query among Informix and non-informix databases on
different servers. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
65 |
|
Index usage monitoring - specify how often an index
is used and maybe what columns of the index are used and for what filtering
purposes. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
66 |
|
Direct server login without using the unix userids.
Ability to turn on automatic record ins/upd/del logging with datetime
stamps. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
67 |
|
Add alter row type statement to alter a row type and
any descendent types or tables. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
68 |
|
I cannot think of anything at the present time. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
69 |
|
Dynamic SQL in Stored Procedure Language |
| 15-Aug-06 |
70 |
|
Ability for the DBA to issue a statement against a
table that would reserve and exclusive lock, terminate any existing
connections to that table, and then give the exclusive lock to the DBA.
Option to allow existing connections to complete before knocking them off. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
71 |
|
simpler way to perform a restore on another server
after a onbar/ism backup |
| 15-Aug-06 |
72 |
|
in isql/dbaccess ability to specify the length
(horizontal width) of the output before dbaccess reformats to vertical layout
of column name - value pairs. Example: colA colb
colc xxxxx xxxxx...100 more...xxxx xxxxx instead of cola xxxxx colb
xxxxx...100 more...xxxx colc xxxxx At least in 9.4 haven't figure out
how to do. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
73 |
|
A graphical onstat that allows to drill down so you
can figure out problems in a quicker way. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
74 |
|
Include a Macintosh client SDK!!!!!! |
| 15-Aug-06 |
75 |
|
Support current versions of ARC SDE (ESRI) on Linux
with associated DataBlade. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
76 |
|
Improve performance or create a new process to
dbexport/dbimport in case of version upgrades. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
77 |
|
Show the explain plan of the select statement in
onstat -g sql. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
78 |
|
instead of unlimited locks, pls have
LOCKSMIN/LOCKSMAX. Smarter update stats like XPS Ability to see query
plans just as in XPS Replication sync feature in ER to be smarter and
ability to use multiple threads, currently it is v v v slow. I-spy features
built-in perhaps with On/Off switch. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
79 |
|
1. easy command to drop all data from a table |
| 15-Aug-06 |
80 |
|
Have onclean work for IDS. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
81 |
|
Bundle ISPY into IDS before ISPY dies on the vine.
Add external tables from XPS to IDS Add onstat -g xqs |
| 15-Aug-06 |
82 |
|
please enhance onstat -u to include unix pid also,
make all human readable command output from hex or other formats |
| 15-Aug-06 |
83 |
|
- Multi-Index Joins in OLTP as they exist in XPS -
Column length independent of encryption or UTF8 (a char(30) should be able to
keep 30 characters no matter how they are crypted or masked |
| 15-Aug-06 |
84 |
|
Improve SNMP support, better and more counters,
enlarge the supported OS (Linux for example) |
| 15-Aug-06 |
85 |
|
1. Any Functions in index. 2. Schemas like oracle |
| 15-Aug-06 |
86 |
|
1. Allow first and next extent size specification
for index creation. 2. Fragment table expressions supporting blade
functions. 3. Table level restore to support UDTs. 4.Optimise SQL for
queries using a view in a correlated subquery. 5.Support opaque datatypes
in distributed queries. 6.Fix long running SPL suffering from poor memory
management. 7.Make SPL a real language. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
87 |
|
Allow you to rebuild an index (drop/create) online.
Reason for a 24/7 system, if an index has ex. 100 extents and you want to
rebuild it. Also allow this for 'alter table add foreign key', since if you
need to drop/create an index that has a foreign key, allow that to be done
online. Minimize the downtime that these will take. I have been at multiple
clients 24/7 where I only had 90 minutes to have an outage, but when I needed
to drop/create and index and re-enable the foreign key on a 100 million row
table, the index rebuild would take 30 minutes, but the re-enabling the
foreign key took 2 1/2 hours, therefore I was unable to do the task. Expand
the current ability to create a new index online. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
88 |
|
provide external tables and load capability like
XPS. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
89 |
|
Add SQL support: select * from Atable where
(c1,c2) = (select c1,c2 from Btable ); update Atable set (c1,c2) = (
select c1,c2 from Btable where ...) where ... ; |
| 15-Aug-06 |
90 |
|
1. Restore the LBU_PRESERVE parameter to prevent
logs filling when they fail to back up. 2. Force a checkpoint
automatically if more than some % of the logs has been filled (even if backed
up) since he last checkpoint. Parameter: CKPTPCT ? 3. An onmode command
to turn the fuzzy checkpoints feature on or off. 4. An onmode command
and/or config parameter to control creation of BEFIMAGE temp tables during an
archive. I have often seen the filling temp space abort a backup. 5.
Automatic expansion of the locks pool: Is there a parameter to enable or
disable this feature? I have seen it extend 8 or 10 times and then corrupt
the server, requiring dial-in by donw-systems support. 6. Lock quotas:
Default quota in ONCONFIG file and database-setable per user or members of a
role, like that big-O company has. (Go ahead; put my PERL scripts out of
business! :-) |
| 15-Aug-06 |
91 |
|
NA |
| 15-Aug-06 |
92 |
|
Point in time restores per DBspace. This requirement
is essential for my comapany as we are currently consolidating our databases
within a dbspace. Currently Onbar gives this facility only per instance!
Therefore we need to restore all the other databases within different
dbspaces to get a database within the required date and time. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
93 |
|
- auditing include mask for table insted of 'user'
and 'action' like I want to audit any action done to specific table by
any users. - auditing for 'select' and 'delete' command include SQL
Statement. like when I delete rows using delete from [table |
| 15-Aug-06 |
94 |
|
If HDR is in asynchronous mode (DRINTERVAL>-1)
avoid synchronous check points (PRIMARY has to wait that the SECONDARY
completes the checkpoint). |
| 15-Aug-06 |
95 |
|
- recreate tables without dropping them before
i.e. 'recreate table a (i int )' would drop existing table a before. For
temporary and normal tables. - using regular expressions in where
clause in querys |
| 15-Aug-06 |
96 |
|
option that the engine should automatically and
dynamically choose the best parameters for LOCKS, BUFFERPOOLS etc, etc. Or
let me dynamically decide between two Profiles: During the week the engine is
an OLTP system, which has to have short checkpoints and therefore as empty as
possible LRUs. On the weekend the engine clears the online-tables and
forwards them to archive-tables. During this time the engine is mainly (but
not only) a batch-system. I can't switch the engine off for
profile-switch!!! But we tested the archiving being 5 times faster with a
batch profile. Or find a way not to block transactions during checkpoints |
| 15-Aug-06 |
97 |
|
graphic compiler for 4gl |
| 15-Aug-06 |
98 |
|
1] Capture some of onstat - output when there is a
critical activity going-on in the online.log 2] For sending e-mails on
critical activity, make provisions to send pages to cell phones. 3] Apart
from sending email on table drops, emails can be sent when HDR stops,
triggers/SP are dropped, indexes are dropped, Memory allocation error,
ALSO, GIVE CONTROL TO DBA FOR SETTING THRESHOLDS FOR onstat commands. 4]
Make versions of Stored Procedure. 5] Include dbspace/tablespace growth history
for days, weeks and months. 6] Track Indexes missing in the database.
Both primary and secondary. 7] Change in Onconfig for all parameters to be
also should be made available in online.log. 8] Informix command should be
able to check if a tape mount has been done on the drive. 9]onstat -d
, should be able to give free space in KB. This is important. also, a column
showing %age of free space on a chunk is also desirable. 10] 'PANIC:
Attempting to bring system down' , should also send out an email. If
possible, the informix support group in IBM must get this email. 11] There
should be a way of identifying a backup backed up chunks that may have been
corrupted. i.e. if online.log has an entry like :- Action: Run 'oncheck -cI
1074439640' , and if restore of level-0 is to be ordered on the same machine,
then restore should restore data to another location/drive/dev. i.e. restore
should prompt DBA to create new dbspaces with same names and chunks BUT on a
different drive or /dev. Any new level-0 backup to be taken must go to a
new tape and not the ones that might have the original backup. 12] ontape
should output the time taken for a backup. 13] There should be a command
to check 'oninit -v' are running on the server. 14] Also, since defunct
processes does critically affect Informix engine, an entry into online.log if
detected should be made. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
99 |
|
export/import like Oracle Datapump in Oracle 10g |
| 15-Aug-06 |
100 |
|
Review the requirements of Sorban-Oxley for tracking
financial transactions and provide an automatic history table feture to track
changes caused by financial transactions |
| 15-Aug-06 |
101 |
|
Give the possibility to define at database level the
LOCK/ISOLATION LEVEL. In other words, modify the CREATE DATABASE statements
as follow: CREATE DATABASE <name> ... ISOLATION LEVEL
[DIRTY|COMMITTED...] LOCK MODE [NOWAIT|WAIT|...]. It could be useful in every
ODBC connection |
| 15-Aug-06 |
102 |
|
I still do not have many knowledge of informix, as
soon as I come it knowing. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
103 |
|
Need multi-threaded versions of dbexport/dbimport so
that several tables can be operated on in parallel and reduce the overall
time that the operations require. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
104 |
|
Have the btree cleaners compress down to the value
specified by the fillfactor percent. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
105 |
|
Better encryption, or atleast some that you could
use without such a huge performance impact |
| 15-Aug-06 |
106 |
|
We need basically more control per session. We'd
like to be able to set session/user 'priority', limit resources depending on
system load etc. Example: A non-pdq report is using a lot of resources. If
the machine is idle, thats OK, however in other cases a command like #
onmode -g sesid -pri [0..100] Oracle has some features like this and they
are really useful. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
107 |
|
Replacements for HPL (like loads in UDB DB2 Version
8.x). |
| 15-Aug-06 |
108 |
|
Create the ability to move the TBLspace extents in
an almost empty chunk. Sometimes after cleanup of tables a chunk only
contains a TBLspace extent. The feature to move that TBLspace extent to
another chunk within the DBspace would be very useful (essential) to us.
Giving us the ability to drop the freed chunk so we can reuse it for another
DBspace. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
109 |
|
tool for optimizing online performance |
| 15-Aug-06 |
110 |
|
Feature for specific database user id's to be
functional when the instance is in single user mode. Example Configuration
mgmt team to be able to deploy schema changes while no application users can
connect to the engine. PLOADer capabilities just like in XPS. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
111 |
|
add some functionn like db2advisor |
| 15-Aug-06 |
112 |
|
In-line view support |
| 15-Aug-06 |
113 |
|
Extend SQL stored procedure and SQL language
functions to include things like ltrim (left trim) rtrim (right trim) and
trim (both). Allow PICTURE or USING or equivilent commands in SQL Stored
Procedure Language. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
114 |
|
IBM full text index/search (instead of excalibur) |
| 15-Aug-06 |
115 |
|
1) Fix your security model so that it works like all
of the other computer security systems - ie. if you are a member of 3 groups,
you have the associated rights of all three groups all of the time, not
having to select one to be active. 2) Give the ability to limit resource
consumption (memory, CPU, net) when it is constrained (100% util is reached)
by users/groups with rules. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
116 |
|
A database scheduling priority would be usefull,
similar to 'set PDQPRIORITY'. eg 'set SESSPRIORITY' and give a relative
weighting to the INFORMIX scheduler to use as a percentage of normal
priority. |
| 15-Aug-06 |
117 |
|
Enhanced Cluster support |
| 15-Aug-06 |
118 |
|
- 'CREATE OR REPLACE' syntax for tables, procedures, functionc, triggers, views ... just like Oracle. - The ability to 'OBFUSCATE' procedures and functions, just like Oracle. - Create/authenticate users in the database (just like Oracle) --> without |
| 30-Aug |
119 |
|
How about the regexp UDR's - bundle them with the engine |
| 31-Aug |
120 |
|
I'd like the same set explain functionality that
exists in XPS in IDS as well |
| 4-Dec-06 |
121 |
|
Allow to dynamically change a table to non-logging. |
