IIUG Insider (Issue #68) February 2006

Highlights: Ambuj Goyal addresses the IIUG membership, The Baan benchmark

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

As you can see I have slightly changed the format of the Insider. It is now more structured and from now on you can expect to find content in the same place saving you time reaching to the topics that interest you. We will try to supply information from IBM management, Success stories and benchmarks demonstrating that Informix is not only alive but growing. As always I am requesting that you send me your own success stories, your thoughts, your suggestions and your requests.

Participate in the IIUG Insider and help us make it a better newsletter.

Gary Ben-Israel
IIUG Insider Editor
IIUG Board of Directors
gary@iiug.org

Highlights Back to top

Ambuj Goyal addresses the IIUG membership

 

Office of the General Manager
Information Management Software
Route 100
Somers, NY 10589

February 2, 2006

Dear IIUG Members,

I wanted to take this opportunity to give you an update on IBM’s strategic direction for Informix® software.

Your existing Informix database software investments will be extended in future releases. IBM is fully committed to the Informix platform, and we are backing up that commitment by investing to support and enhance the Informix software portfolio as technology evolves. We are basing this investment on the positive feedback we’ve received from Informix end users, our business partners, and the analyst community.

A proof point of that commitment was the release of Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) Version 10.0 last year. In addition, we launched a new product IDS Express v10 in to the market place. We have built superior feature and function enhancements into IDS v10. It.s the fastest, most reliable and most scalable IDS database ever. In short, IDS is a strategic full featured pure OLTP data server.

Delivering high quality IT services today is harder than ever; requiring development and management of highly complex systems. IBM is simplifying this task for our Informix customers by providing a broad spectrum of industry-leading business integration, systems management, collaboration, application development and information management software that is integrated and certified with Informix products.

The current Informix enhancement plan outlines product strategy through the year 2011. Looking at a five year view is consistent with other IBM software products. We will continue to share with you Informix enhancements plans in a five year window going forward. The current plan includes work on the future version of Informix Dynamic Server (IDS), the follow on to the currently available IDS V10 product. One of the keys to our strategy is R&D investment for integrating Informix across the IBM software portfolio — Lotus, Rational, Tivoli, WebSphere, and, of course, IBM Information Management software.

We’ve based this strategy on what you’ve been telling us. We understand that your business relies on Informix solutions to achieve Information On Demand. As a result, IBM will continue to support the worldwide ecosystem of Informix application providers, solution providers and resellers. And you’ll continue to enjoy the flexibility of running Informix on your choice of hardware and operating system platforms.

IBM has the largest R&D organization in the world. Since Informix software became part of the IBM family, IBM R&D has delivered significant improvements to Informix’s overall capabilities. IBM’s depth of innovation, superior service and support, solutions integration, adherence to standards, strong business partnerships, and solution value remains unmatched. I am personally committed to the success of your business, and to delivering the best available technology to support your current IT investment.

For more information and details on Informix (IDS) please visit our website at http://www.ibm.com/informix.

Thank you for continuing to work with IBM. We will keep working hard to deliver you leading edge technology in support of your business objectives.

Sincerely,

Ambuj Goyal
General Manager, Information Management Software
IBM Software Group

 

The Baan benchmark

Performance of SSA Baan IVc4 and Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) V10.0 was consistently strong across a range of servers, in current benchmark tests.

An impressive 4441 BRU (1) was attained during the benchmark with the 4 CPU model of an HP IntegrityTM RX4640 server (1.6 GHz). This measurement exceeds predicted capacity of Baan IVc4 on the same system, with a different competitive database, as well as measured performance of Baan IVc4 with previous versions of Informix Dynamic Server. Results of the benchmark on various 2 CPU models of the HP Integrity server displayed the same powerful trend.

SSA Baan offers the rich functionality that discrete manufacturers need to optimize their core internal processes and transactions, from planning and manufacturing to warehouse management and accounting. It’s dynamic, integrated enterprise modeling capabilities make it easy to configure SSA Baan ERP to fit particular business functions, processes and organizational structure -providing value without waste.

IBM Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) V10.0 offers outstanding online transaction processing (OLTP) database performance while helping customers simplify and automate many of the tasks associated with deploying enterprise databases. IDS V10.0 contains features that speed application development, increase performance, improve data security, make replication more robust, and further ease the burden of database administration. Organizations can now free up skilled database administrator (DBA) resources and leverage their existing investment to focus on next-generation enterprise applications.

The IBM and SSA Global Technologies Strategic Alliance leverages the assets of the two companies to afford small to very large organizations “enterprise-strength” solutions. Together, we can help reduce the overall cost of doing business – with no compromises.

(1) A BRU (Benchmark Reference User) represents a single user executing a session that generates a load on the system. By relating all SSA ERPLN sessions to that reference load, the actual mix of sessions executed at any given implementation will determine the translation from the BRU to the maximum number of concurrent users for that implementation.
IBM and Informix Dynamic Server are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation.
SSA, SSA Global, SSA Global Technologies and SSA ERPLN are trademarks or registered trademarks of SSA Global Technologies.
HP Integrity is a trademark or registered trademark of Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P
Other company, product and service names may be the trademarks or service marks of others.
©Copyright IBM Corporation 2006; Produced in the United States of America 02-06. All Rights Reserved
References in this publication to IBM products or services do not imply that IBM intends to make them available in all countries in which IBM operates.

 

Conference corner Back to top

IIUG/IDUG NA Conference, Tampa May 7-11, 2006

IDUG 2006 – North America
May 7-11, 2006
Tampa, Florida, USA

Go Further…with Informix at IDUG 2006

This will be year 2 of the IIUG participation in the IDUG conference. IDUG is the DB2 user group that has put on DB2 user conferences for many years. IDUG has partnered with IIUG to include an Informix user conference agenda managed by the conference planning committee (CPC). The CPC is comprised of volunteers who have been working hard determining the Informix presentations and speakers that will be the IIUG/Informix part. We have added a fourth track (last year in Denver there were 3 tracks) to the conference agenda to accommodate more than 50 technical sessions spread over 4 days.

Additionally, there are 6 half day tutorials scheduled for May 6. These sessions (a.k.a. Educational Seminars or Ed Sems) are like mini training classes and cover a wide variety of Informix topics. There is an additional cost to attend the Ed Sems, but consider it money well spent for training.

The conference is all of this and so much more – special interest groups, networking opportunities, vendor presentations and exhibits, expert panel discussions and keynote presentations by IBM executives.

Start making your plans now to attend – May is only a few months away! For all of the conference details, visit /conf and follow the link to the IDUG conference web pages. Be sure to check out the conference agenda, including an interactive schedule viewer and personal itinerary planner, to see the list of topics and presenters already lined up. The registration is live and the negotiated rates for the conference hotels are available on a first come, first served basis so don’t wait too long!

We are looking forward to seeing you there.

We recommend you visit the North America Conference Blog at: http://idugtampa2006.blogspot.com/

For updated information about the conference.

Registration is now open. Register online or download a print-friendly version of the registration form.

Once you register for IDUG 2006 – North America, volunteer to moderate a session through the Personal Itinerary Builder.

Attention Vendors. Booth space is now being sold. Last years conference had the most Informix vendors of any conference event in years. For only $3500 gets you a 10′ X 10′ booth space to meet with the most Informix users in years at a major conference. For more information, contact cindy@iiug.org and she can direct you to Exhibit Hall.

The IUGLC is back by popular demand!!

The Informix User Group Leadership Council has not met for a couple of years due to lack of interest. However, we are going to revive it and have a IUGLC Meeting at the IDUG/IIUG NA Conference in Tampa, in May. More details to come in the next Insider.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please email Cindy Lichtenauer at cindy@iiug.org

IIUG/IDUG Europe Conference Rome, October 9-13, 2006

For the first time the IIUG is offering a high quality technical conference in Europe. Two full Informix tracks with top-level speakers. We will send out a call for presentations soon so stay tuned. The IIUG Conference planning Committee has been formed and is working together with IDUG to make this happen. We are looking forward to meeting you in Rome.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please email Paul Watson at paul@iiug.org

IIUG Board of Directors corner Back to top

Announcing the new Informix forum

As a user group we tend to focus on technical issues with Informix. Our special interest groups touch not only Informix IDS but topics like administration, integration with other products, development tools and… well about 20 different concepts in 5 languages. What we have not focused on so much is the development of the Informix Brand as we have tended to leave that in the IBM domain. However it is clear that many of our members are very concerned about the direction that IBM is taking with the Brand, and want to have a say. As a Board we have been very strong in advocating to IBM your concerns, but we want to do more. We have created the “Informix-forum” as a new Special Interest Group.

The purpose of the Informix-forum is to provide a place for you to advocate your concerns, ideas, concepts to other members, the Board, and to the IBM’ers who monitor this group.

There are no topic areas that are off limits. However this is not really a technical forum. There are plenty of forums that are monitored by the best technical brains in the Informix world. Instead the Informix-forum is a place to voice your ideas on how to improve this great product and its Brand.

I really encourage you to link into the new SIG and participate. Just use the link at the bottom of the Insider to access your member area and sign up.

Regards,

David Fraser

Report of the San Diego board meeting

The IIUG Board of Directors met in San Diego February 25-27, 2006.

We had presentations by:

Bruce weed, IBM Worldwide Informix Business Leader and IIUG board member
Cindy Fung, Informix Marketing & Strategy Manager
Steven Miller, Informix Sales manager
Jin Zhang, Project Management manager

And a conference call with Linda Spina, IBM Information Management Sales – Americas

We were updated about IBM’s plans for Informix in 2006 and beyond and discussed ways to enhance the IBM-IIUG relationship.

The board has set plans and assignments for 2006 and decided to focus on proactively reaching out to AP and EMEA, along with continuing our ongoing activities you are all aware of. In the March edition we will report in detail our assignments and goals and will regularly update you on the status. We are convinced that Informix is past the stage it needs to justify its existence. It is now an IBM strategic product and, as you will see in the coming year, on its way to be a leading database. We will supply the facts. We count on you to make them available outside the Informix community.

Regards,

Gary Ben-Israel
IIUG Board of Directors

Results of our EMEA survey

90 users have responded to our quick one question survey:

Would you attend the IIUG/IDUG conference in Rome October 9 – 13 2006?

36 answered No.
26 answered Maybe.
28 answered Yes.

The response is very encouraging taking into account the conference was not promoted and the short duration of the survey. We would like to thank all participants you provided us with valuable information.

Regards,

Gary Ben-Israel

Education Back to top

Chat with the lab

Informix Chat with the Lab – Wednesday, March 8th, 11 AM Eastern

Unlocking the Mysteries of Update Statistics – John Miller III

Join the expert, John Miller, to learn about statistics and distributions, how they are used by the SQL optimizer and how to improve performance during their collection. Our speakers are: Jerry Keesee, Director of the Informix Lab and John Miller III, Senior Technical Staff Member.

Please RSVP for this Chat at: https://ww4.premconf.com/webrsvp/register?conf_id=5061464

The next Chat will be Wednesday, April 12th.

Linda Spina
IBM Information Management Sales – Americas

Get a Fast Start on Training with $500 saving on IBM public classes

Get a jump-start on training during first quarter, when new projects are gearing up, new software versions are introduced and yearly budgets have been set. . Now you can get first quarter savings, too, with IBM’s Fast Start Savings promotion. Enroll and attend any eligible IBM public class between February 1 and April 4, 2006, and you’ll save $500 off tuition. Use priority code 6N2KJ02W when enrolling.

More: http://www.ibm.com/training/us/faststart6

Regards,

Amiet Goldman
Marketing Manager
IBM Global Services, supporting IBM Education Services

Developer corner Back to top

Binary PHP PDO Driver for Informix available for Windows

The PHP PDO (PHP Data Object) driver for IBM Informix IDS has been released on 2005-12-14 as a source code version and is available directly from the PHP PECL site at: http://pecl.php.net/package/PDO_INFORMIX.

To ease the deployment of the driver, IIUG has delivered a binary version of the DLL (php_pdo_informix.dll). There is no guarantee coming with the product, but it might help quite a few users, until PHP ships the driver in its standard package.

The package is available on the IIUG Software Repository and contains a standard DLL and a debug DLL with traces.

Jean Georges Perrin (aka jgp)
IIUG (International Informix Users Group) – Board of Directors
http://www.iiug.org
jgp@iiug.org

Class::DBI::Informix

Anyone who is using an Informix database with Perl might be interested in Class::DBI::Informix and Class::DBI::Loader::Informix that Jonathan Leffler released to CPAN recently.

Class::DBI is an object relational mapping library that allows you to define classes that represent tables in the database and the relationships between the tables. You can read more about it at:

http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?Class%3A%3ADBI

Class::DBI::Loader automates the creation of the Class::DBI subclasses: defining the columns, primary key and foreign key relationships and can be seen at:

http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?Class%3A%3ADBI%3A%3ALoader

Class::DBI::Informix and Class::DBI::Loader::Informix provide the Informix specific functionality that the generic modules didn’t, thus allowing you to use this labour saving framework with your favourite database server. You can find them at:

http://search.cpan.org/~jstowe/Class-DBI-Loader-Informix-0.02/

These both should be considered as beta releases.

What’s new on developerworks

The following articles can be found in the Informix section of developerworks:

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/views/db2/libraryview.jsp

Configure Informix Dynamic Server with WebSphere Application Server
Learn how to configure Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) with WebSphere Application Server. Review some common problems you might encounter and their resolutions. The article also includes tips on using custom properties to set up IDS environment variables.
16 Feb 2006

Informix OnBar and Tivoli Storage Manager, Part 1: Configure and use IDS/OnBar with Tivoli Storage Manager for powerful backup and restore
Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) allows the database administrator to send the database backups directly to an external storage manager. IDS and TSM together build a powerful team to back up large databases safely and to restore them quickly.
16 Feb 2006

Simplify loading data from relational databases with WebSphere Information Integrator Omnifind Enterprise Search
Integrate Informix with WebSphere Information Integrator OmniFind search technology to provide a more enterprise-wide searching capability.
26 Jan 2006

IBM WebSphere Developer Technical Journal: Leverage IBM Express Runtime to develop and deploy complete software solutions
IBM Express Runtime offers a cohesive set of middleware components and a single environment that enables ISVs to create and deploy middleware components along with their own applications as a single package across multiple platforms. This article demonstrates the entire process.
18 Jan 2006

Informix in the press Back to top

From CAPE press release January 11, 2006:

CAPE Systems Announces Release 4.0 of Its PicRite. Pick-To-Light Picking System

David Sasson, CAPE’s Chief Operating Officer and Chief Technical Officer, explains, “This is an elegant solution for companies with legacy based systems that need to port their picking function on to the latest platforms, with all the benefits of accuracy and productivity improvement which PicRite(R) Release 4.0 provides. That means access to the fastest file servers from manufacturers such as IBM, Dell and Hewlett-Packard, as well as seamless access to industry-standard databases such as Informix, Oracle and SQL Server.”

You can find the full article at: http://news.thomasnet.com/fullstory/475132/fyi

Calendar of events Back to top
March – 2006
Date Event Location Contact
1 Chicago Informix User Group Meeting IBM Facility, Schaumburg IL Ron Flannery
15 Southern California Informix User Group Meeting with Lester Knutsen IBM Facility, Costa Mesa, California Bruce Marchu
31 New England Informix User Group Meeting IBM Facility, Waltham, MA June Hunt
April – 2006
Date Event Location Contact
5 Washington (DC) Area Informix User Group Meeting IBM Facility, Fairfax VA Lester Knutsen
May – 2006
Date Event Location Contact
2 Portland Area Informix Tech Fair Portland, Oregon John Miller
7-11 IDUG/IIUG North America Conference Tampa, Florida Cindy Lichtenauer
October – 2006
Date Event Location Contact
9-13 IDUG/IIUG 2006 – Europe Rome, Italy Cindy Lichtenauer
15-20 IBM Information on Demand Global Conference Anaheim, California

 

Useful links Back to top

In response to your input, we have created a page on the IIUG web site containing all the links we used to include. Please find it at: /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. 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.
Editors: Gary Ben Israel
Stuart Litel
Jean Georges Perrin

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.