IIUG Insider (Issue #176) February 2015

Highlights: Electing the 2015 IIUG board of directors

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

February was, as it always is in the northern hemisphere, cold. Jerusalem even had 10 inches of snow. I hope the weather will be warming up soon.

It will definitely warm up for the IIUG. We will be electing the new IIUG board in March and we will have IIUG2015 in April. The elections are your chance to influence the direction of the IIUG by standing for elections or by voting. The 2015 board will be presented at IIUG2015 in San Diego.

Don’t miss our event. It is the largest Informix gathering in the world. There are many outstanding sessions, leading Informix developers and support engineers, friends, colleagues, parties and more. San Diego is a great location. I know I have said it many times. As a matter of fact, I repeat myself every year hoping to convince those who never came and those who did but are not planning to attend this year.

See you in San Diego.

Gary Ben-Israel


Highlights Back to top

Electing the 2015 IIUG Board of Directors

Elections for IIUG Board of Directors

Each year the membership of the International Informix Users Group elects its Board of Directors. Anyone who became an IIUG member at least a month prior to the election is eligible to vote via online ballot at http://www.iiug.org. This year the new Board of Directors will be installed on May 1, 2015.

The election is a democratic process whereby the candidates who get the most votes and confirm their interest to serve in a timely manner after being contacted with the results will be confirmed as elected. To avoid potential conflicts of interest, votes are automatically tallied and manually validated by the members of the IIUG Nominating Committee who are not standing for election.

The IIUG Board of Directors election is overseen by a Nominating Committee that supervises both the nomination process and the election. The members of Nominating Committee are appointed by the current Board of Directors.

2015 Election Timeline

2 Mar 2015 Nominations Open
16 Mar 2015 Nominations Close
23 Mar 2015 Election Announced
30 Mar 2015 Start of Election
13 Apr 2015 End of Election
27 Apr 2015 Election Result Officially Declared

Notes to the above

  1. Nominations must be made by email to the Election Commissioner at the email address board-election@iiug.org. The email must state the following:
    • Applicant’s name.
    • Applicant’s parent organization and role in that organization.
    • Applicant’s IIUG membership number.
    • A brief description about why the applicant would be a good candidate for the role on the IIUG Board.
    • A brief description about the attributes that the applicant has and can apply to the work of the IIUG Board.
    • A statement acknowledging that the applicant has the time commitment to devote to the work of the IIUG Board that will include, amongst other things, a daily commitment to email correspondence, a monthly commitment to conference calls and at least two Board meetings (normally 3 days plus travel) and attendance and assistance to the IIUG Informix conference in North America (normally 5 days plus travel). For all the events, attendance is compulsory.
    • The IIUG Board may, at its discretion, reject any nomination for any reason without disclosing such reason.
    • Nominations received after 5pm US Eastern Standard Time on the 16th of March 2015 will not be eligible.
    • You may nominate yourself. If nomination is for another person, that person must acknowledge their acceptance of the nomination in a separate email to the Election Commissioner at board-election@iiug.org.
  2. An election will only occur if there are more nominations than Board positions.
  3. The election will run over a two week period.
  4. Following the election, the successful nominees will be required to confirm their availability. This will be by way of written correspondence with the Election Commissioner.
  5. The election result will be officially declared by the Election Commissioner on the 27th of April 2015 and announced via the Insider eNewsletter, IIUG Website or email blast to members.
  6. The new IIUG Board will take up their responsibilities from the close of the IIUG2015 in San Diego, California. There is no specific requirement that new Board members attend the San Diego conference.

The Candidates

Candidates for the IIUG Board of Directors are selected by the IIUG Nominating Committee who try to find nominees that represent a wide geographical membership as well as a mix of product utilization, and who can meet the many and varied challenges and functions of the Board.

Candidate Selection Process

IIUG members who are interested in running for a seat on the IIUG Board of Directors should submit the completed Nominee Questionnaire below to board-election@iiug.org prior to the close of the announced deadline for nominations. The resulting nominees are announced prior to the election and candidate statements are posted on the IIUG Website and on the ballot as well.

All currently elected board members are REQUIRED to attend at least two board meetings that could be held anywhere in the world and the annual IIUG2015 Conference. Failure to do so will result in removal from the board. Expenses will be covered as part of being a member of the IIUG Board. Also a one hour conference call is held each month (during business hours). All Board members are expected to be part of this call. Failure to do so, could also result in removal from the IIUG Board. Interested candidates for IIUG Board should clear this with their employer prior to submitting their name as a candidate.

  • IIUG Board of Directors Nominee Questionnaire (Web Page)
  • IIUG Board of Directors Nominee Questionnaire (MS Word version)

IIUG Board Members Duties

Serving on the IIUG Board of Directors is a minimum one-year commitment. It requires travel to meetings, monthly conference calls, and regular e-mail communication with other Board members as described above. The Board meets formally for two to four days up to three times a year, whenever possible during weekends.

In addition to representing and serving Informix users worldwide, Board members are expected to think strategically about the future of the Informix community and their relationship with IBM. Fringe benefits of serving on the IIUG Board include expenses-paid attendance to the IIUG Informix User Conference and all other required meetings, direct contact with IBM executives, early access to product and service news, visibility and leadership development.

To learn more about what it is like to be a member of the IIUG Board of Directors, please see Being an IIUG Board Member. A personal view, by Neil Truby.


Conference corner Back to top

Hurry! Regular Registration extended to March 2nd

There is less than 1 week left before the Late Registration price increase for IIUG2015 takes effect. You have until midnight (EST) Monday, March 2, 2015 to register for IIUG2015 in San Diego.

Register now to receive the Standard Registration rate and apply your $100 IIUG Membership Discount for a total cost of $1050 USD. This year we will also be celebrating the 20th Birthday of the IIUG. Join us for IIUG2015, the Seventh Annual IIUG event.

Remember, your IIUG2015 registration guarantees you entrance to the April 30th tutorials at NO ADDITIONAL CHARGE for all paid attendees. We will also offer the ever popular hands-on labs. This is a great opportunity to extend your training budget.

We are still finalizing our hands-on labs and tutorial topics. Here is a list of potential topics for this year:

Hands-On Labs

  • Acceleration Queries and Analytics with IWA Across Multiple Data Types
  • Using TimeSeries Data and NoSQL Together
  • Introduction to Enterprise Replication
  • Take a REST With Your Data
  • Build Your First TimeSeries Application on Bluemix

Tutorials

  • Application Development Using a Hybrid Database
  • Plan, Configure and Deploy your Informix Warehouse Accelerator Environment
  • IoT Gateway in a Box
  • John & Scott’s Performance Tutorial
  • Replication Within The Grid
  • Exploring New Features in Informix Using Bluemix
  • IBM Internet of Things Foundation SaaS Offering
  • Creating and Using Tenant Databases
  • Build Your First Genero Mobile Application

…And much, much more

Speakers are continuing to submit their presentations for IIUG2015. As these sessions are submitted we will continue to add them to the conference website. The speakers at IIUG2015 are the best the Informix community has to offer. New speakers and familiar faces are eager to share their knowledge and expertise while presenting interesting and relevant topics that can be used to reinforce your professional skills.

We are finalizing out keynotes for this year and are pleased to announce Jeff Jonas as one of our keynote speakers. Jeff’s work has received wide media attention from the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Fortune Magazine, MSNBC and National Public Radio. A highly sought after speaker, Jeff travels the globe discussing innovation, national security, and privacy with government leaders, industry executives, and leading global think tanks. He is on the boards of the US Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and a Distinguished Engineer of Information Systems (adjunct) at Singapore Management University (SMU).

Use our Justification Document if you are still having problems convincing your boss this is a valuable way to spend your training budget.

We look forward to seeing you!

Apr 26 — April 30, 2015

Marriott Mission Valley, San Diego CA

Rhonda Hackenburg


Support corner Back to top

No Leap day, just a Leap Second

Our 2015 calendar year has no leap day in February, but we will have a Leap Second addition on June 30th 2015, at 23:59:60. This will provide a correction to keep the International atomic clock aligned with the earth’s rotation. A leap second announcement can be a challenge for computing at the Operating System level, especially when the system is tied to the atomic clock (UTC timing) interval. Understandably, a DBA could become very worried about the impact when a one second adjustment is not handled well.

For Informix products, a leap second has occurred 10 times between 1990 and 2015, and the product quietly keeps doing what it needs to do. Informix datetime seconds can span the range of 0 to 61 seconds in the datetime format. As long as the client-side application does not limit the number of seconds solely to the range of 0 to 59, the server side datetime seconds value will be able to handle up to 2 leap seconds. The environment variable GL_DATETIME provides additional formatting options.

– David Jay


Informix corner Back to top

IBM Internet of Things Architecture and Capabilities

Informix is Uniquely Positioned for Sensor Analytics

The IIUG 2015 Promo video

Video is live right here: http://youtu.be/uelOj90z8EI


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 and will definitely keep registered, due to the value of the information delivered.

Register here.

New RFEs for February 2015

Provide mechanism to convert suitable expression-based fragmentation storage schemas to interval-based

We have a large about approaching 1 Tb in data only which has an expression-based fragmentation storage schema.

When we created the table FRAGMENT BY INTERVAL was not available but the table has an expression-based schema compatible with interval partitioning.

One major problem we have is that the expression-based schema is by date and the last partition ends on Sept 30th 2015.

We are looking at options for this table. If it were created again today doubtlessly we would look at interval-based fragmentation.

We would like to request a mechanism whereby suitable expression-based fragmentation can be converted to interval-based. This would ideally include the indices on the table but if, not we could take an extended outage to rebuild them.

Use spatial datatypes and functions from another database

Using spatial functions is limited to the database in which it is defined. If you have to combine a spatial function with spatial data in 2 different databases you first need to convert 1 datatype to varchar. This is slowing down the performance.

Rename database with spatial datablade

When you migrate a database from the production environment to test or development, you have to drop the database on test/development, before you can import the production database. This because you can.t rename a database with spatial information.

If it’s possible to rename this database, you can fist execute the import in a different database, if the import is ok, rename the old database and put the newly imported database in place.

Existing chunk can be re-used

Currently if we try to add an existing chunk to the dbspace it does not give any error that chunk is already in use. The server crashes if a chunk is re-used and the only way is to restore it back from backup.

Study informix

Our team uses product informix for our project.

The Red Brick SQL use large IN list problem addition to error message

Red Brick Ver6.30.xC15
Windows Server 2012

The customer enhancement request function addition to output error message indicating the cause of SELECT statements that use large IN lists caused the Red Brick 10410 and 10410 error occurred. The customer can’t judge the cause of this error. It error mean is connection error message below.

** FATAL ** (10410) Could not receive from the server. OS error: No error (0).
** FATAL ** (10442) The server has unexpectedly closed the socket. It may have stopped running.

The PMR#27774,999,760 happened to the customer add a function to output the following messages.

For example error message:
RBA00000E: Session terminated; Too many in list on SQL statement.

This issue summary Red Brick error message ** FATAL ** (10410), could not receive from the server when running query with large IN LIST.
There is not the error message indicating the cause of the error then. The error message is only information of could not receive form the server.
It message out putted now, the customer can’t identify problem cause of the error.

The following fixed case to be the origin of this error.
* CSL #27625,999,760
SELECT statements that use large IN lists caused the Red Brick service to stop

Gary Ben-Israel


Calendar of events Back to top

March – 2015
Date Event Location Contact
4 Colorado Informix User Group Meeting Bureau of Land Management, Lakewood, CO Mike Walker
April – 2015
Date Event Location Contact
26-30 IIUG2015 San Diego, CA Cindy Lichtenauer

 


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

Forums, groups, videos, and magazines

  • The IIUG forums
  • Informix Marketing channel on YouTube
  • IBM Data Magazine
  • 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

/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. 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.
Editors: Gary Ben-Israel
Rhonda Hackenburg

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.