Highlights: IIUG 2021 Survey
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.
Table of Contents
Editorial
On November 5th the IIUG board had a virtual meeting. The meeting was short but productive. Our last in-person board meeting was February 2020. We hope to have a physical meeting February 2022.
Although we make virtual meetings work, they cannot fully replace a in-person meeting.
You can carefully plan a meeting and follow the agenda but with a virtual meeting you miss all the talks and discussions you have after meeting hours. We hope that the COVID situation will allow us to meet.
Gary Ben-Israel
IIUG Insider Editor
IIUG Board of Directors
Highlights
IIUG 2021 Survey
The IIUG board has prepared a very short survey about the state of Informix in 2021. It is a shorter version of our 2020 survey, but some questions are the same. The goal is to track down changes in the community with the minimum effort needed to complete the survey. The estimated time to respond is 3 minutes on any device, since there may be at most one answer that needs typing.
Please, go to https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/IIUG2021 and to complete the survey. Your participation is of great importance.
The survey will be open until December 20th. As before, we will communicate the results through IIUG channels. Thank you for your time!
Ognjen Orel
IIUG Board
Informix Corner
Informix Tech Talks: Informix Benchmarks on Cloud Systems – Updated!
Description: This is an update to the presentation at the Informix 2021 Virtual Conference.
Time: December 9 @ 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EST
– What is the Cloud?
– Other Benchmarks, and Tools I Used
– Case Study – Supporting Informix customers on the Cloud
– Observations About Informix in the Cloud
– Updated Benchmark Results
– Updated Cost Benefit Review and Learnings
– Updated Performance Tuning Recommendations on the Cloud
How fast will your database run in the cloud compared to your hardware? After working with customers moving their databases to the cloud and testing our new Informix training systems, I will share observations and performance recommendations. I will also share results using the benchmarks from my Fastest Informix DBA contests. I found a 25% variance in performance on VM systems running the same benchmark 100 times, making it difficult to judge if a change improved performance or just time variance. Does this variance also apply to cloud systems? I will share some results from my testing on cloud platforms.
Registration is required – Please Register Here
Informix 14.10 xC7 fixpack highlights
On Nov 4th, the IBM Informix 14.10.xC7 fixpack was released and here are the highlights and key features:
Several new command options were added or enhanced to deliver more detailed information for easier administration and troubleshooting.
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You can now drill down into general statistics for index operations, including reverse scans and number of retries, by using the new ‘onstat -I’ command.
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The onstat – g rah command has been significantly enhanced, breaking down readahead statistics by partition and thread.
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Prior to xC7, oncheck would quit immediately if it fails to get a lock. When checking an entire database with oncheck -cDI or a similar command this can be rather inconvenient. A new oncheck -w [#seconds] option has been created to introduce a wait for locks. When oncheck encounters a lock while performing its work, it will first indicate to the user that it is waiting, then pause until either the given timeout expires, or the lock is acquired.
The mirroring feature is now on by default starting with xC7 and the MIRROR configuration parameter has been removed. Permanently enabling mirroring carries no perceptible cost in terms of memory and CPU resources, and the MIRROR parameter was not dynamically tunable.
- Please be aware – The value of the MIRRORPATH parameter is now taken seriously by the server in situations where it was ignored before. Prior to 14.10.xC7, MIRRORPATH could be set to anything at all in your config file as long as MIRROR was either absent, unset, or set explicitly to 0. With mirroring permanently enabled now, MIRRORPATH must be set accurately. If the ROOT DBspace is not mirrored, MIRRORPATH should be unset or removed from the config file.
- Note that you cannot start mirroring on the ROOT DBspace by simply setting MIRRORPATH and bouncing the server. Unless you are performing a complete disk initialization, use the onspaces -m command to start mirroring on the ROOT DBspace.
- If your pre-xC7 instance already has mirroring enabled, with MIRROR set to 1, you can simply remove MIRROR from your config file and migrate without any concerns.
- Leaving the MIRROR parameter in your config file during the migration will cause no harm. It will be flagged as an unknown or deprecated parameter each time you start the server and may be removed at any time. MIRRORPATH is the only parameter that may need some attention before the migration due to this new server behavior.
And to wrap up, InformixHQ 1.6.0 has several enhancements that were delivered as part of the 14.10.xC7 release.
- You can now write custom SQL and display the query tree plan in the graphical format under Schema Manager – SQL editor.
- Starting with this release, InformixHQ recognizes secondaries within an HDR cluster and displays them accordingly and disables operations that are not allowed on secondaries within the GUI.
- A search option is now provided for each of the system reports and enhanced smart search within InformixHQ with multiple keyword search.
- Enhanced Storage capabilities are provided as users will be able to see Tables and indexes existing in ALL Dbspaces and ALL Databases combination.
Just a few more reasons to plan your upgrade to 14.10 now!
Karen Qualley – HCL
Sign-Up to Take Your Informix 14.10 Certification Exam
Don’t forget to registration for the New Informix Certification exam!
The IIUG has finalized the requirements needed to complete the NEW Informix 14.10 Certification badge. The test is available!
There are two options to complete the exam:
1. You were a paid registrant to IIUG World 2021. Paid registrants to IIUG World 2021 received a complementary one-time exam with a paid registration. You will be required to provide your registration number to schedule your exam. You have until January 31, 2022 to complete your complementary exam.
2. Pay $150 fee to take the exam. Exams must be completed within 90 days after purchase. The $150 dollars is non-refundable. You will receive an email receipt with a confirmation code used to register for you exam. PAY HERE!
To begin the exam registration process, email either your IIUG World registration code or your exam confirmation code to Stuart Litel (slitel@ibm.com). He will work with you to schedule your exam.
The exam will be administered online. You are required to complete the exam with a proctor from our approved list, or nominate one of your own, to be approved by the IIUG. You will be required to have a live webcam running as you complete the exam. (For those not familiar with the term Proctor: The word proctor is frequently used to describe someone who oversees an exam. In today’s testing environment, a proctor will typically verify a student’s identity by checking a photo ID and then ensures academic integrity guidelines are followed during the exam.)
You will have 90 minutes to answer 60 questions. You must achieve a 72% to receive your badge.
If you have questions, please contact us at conference@iiug.org
Rhonda Hackenburg
IIUG Board and Planning Committee
Informix Tech Talks on YouTube
222 subscribers, 21 great videos. Subscribe to our channel and enjoy great content.
All Past Tech Talks:
https://www.iiug.org/en/category/techtalks/
RFE Corner
IBM has an RFE – Request For Enhancements website.
https://ibm-data-and-ai.ideas.aha.io/?project=INFX
Please visit this site to vote for your favorite enhancements and place new requests. It is friendly and has a nice look and feel.
Recent
Evaluate using io_uring for I/O in Informix Linux Platform
Popular (Over 50 votes)
Obtain the query plan of a running query
Many times a DBA is called to check upon a slow process. Most of the times those processes are running a slow query.
Sometimes it’s hard to know if the query is using the best query plan or not. A DBA can reproduce the query, but it it was prepared without values or if the statistics were changed after it started there is no guarantee that the query plan seen by the DBA is the same as the running query.
We have “onstat -g pqs” which sometimes can give us a clue, but it’s mostly cryptic and undocumented. If a user has X-Windows he can try xtree, but it’s a bit strange for todays standards.
We also have SQLTRACE, but if it was not set when the query was launched it will not capture the info (and besides, due to the circular nature of the buffer it may not be there at the time we need it).
A simple pseudo-table in sysmaster could probably implement this with ease.
It could also be extended to support the “last” query plan making it easy to get the query plan in any tool
Votes: 99 (+1)
Created: December 24, 2018
Status: Future consideration
Informix should be able to change owner on tables and any other objects
If user=informix creates all database and all tables, then programmer creates table but user=informix cannot change it. Only drop it.
Votes: 92 (+1)
Created: December 24, 2018
Status: Future consideration
Backup Individual database, not entire instance
Need a mechanism, similar to ontape, to backup a live database (as opposed to entire instance), without locking it.
Votes: 85 (+1)
Created: December 24, 2018
Status: Future consideration
Gary Ben-Israel
IBM Informix Forum Corner
Join and visit the IBM Informix community forum at http://www.iiug.org/community
Recent posts
decimal type data input error (-1226)
Gary Ben-Israel
Informix Resources
IIUG Website
www.iiug.org
IBM Informix Community
http://www.iiug.org/community
Informix Blogs and Wikis
Please note: The list below contains only blogs that were active in the last six months.
- Art Kagel http://informix-myview.blogspot.co.il/
Technical Articles
https://www.oninitgroup.com/technical-articles/
https://www.oninitgroup.com/faq-items/cloud-backups-with-informix-14-10/
Social Media
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/InformixTechTalksbytheIIUG
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/25049
Twitter : https://twitter.com/iiug
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/IIUG.Informix
Forums, Groups, Videos, and Magazines
- The IIUG old forums at http://www.iiug.org/forums/technical.php *** NO LONGER ACTIVE ***
- Informix Marketing channel on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/user/informixmarketing?feature=results_main
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.
Editors: Gary Ben-Israel, Rhonda Hackenburg
For comments, please send an email to gary@iiug.org or rhonda@iiug.org
