IIUG Insider (Issue #181) July 2015

Highlights: Jonathan Leffler is back!

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

Hope to meet you at the IBM Insight 2015.

The IIUG 2016 conference in May is in the planning stage. For now we are planning to hold it May in North Carolina or Florida, but nothing is final. I will give you the exact dates and location in the August Insider. Stay tuned.

Gary Ben-Israel


Highlights Back to top

Jonathan Leffler is Back!

After a short 2 years break away from IBM, during which he was at Google, Jonathan Leffler is back to the IBM Informix family. He will join the Informix Leadership Team, focusing on SQL and Security while contributing in other areas as well.

Welcome back Jonathan. For me and many IIUG members it is the best news for 2016. Looking forward to meeting you at the IIUG conference in May. Start planning your sessions.


Conference corner Back to top

Are You Ready for Something Big?

IBM Insight 2015

October 25 — 29, Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas NV

Welcome to the premier conference for data and analytics. Explore the newest innovations, industry breakthroughs and hottest trends in analytics, cloud, mobile, the Internet of Things and Watson that you won’t find anywhere else. It’s not just about the data anymore – it’s about getting business insights faster.

Register today and save $700!

IIUG 2016 Status

The hardest part of scheduling the annual IIUG conference is finding a great location. We strive to find a location that meets the needs of the conference and is financially feasible for our attendees. We want to continue to make the IIUG event the best value for you training dollars.

With that in mind, the IIUG Board is in the final stages of determining the dates and locations for IIUG 2016.

We should be able officially announce IIUG 2016 in the next edition of the Insider. All I can share at this time is: 1) the board has narrowed the search down to 3 locations, 2) the location will be in the East Coast time zone of the USA and 3) the dates will either be the week of May 1 or the week of May 8 of 2016. So, keep those dates open.

Call for speakers will start sometime around early to mid October and the speaker selection process will be done before the Christmas holiday.

Rhonda Hackenburg
IIUG 2016 Planning Committee


Support corner Back to top

Enable DRDA

Those who have been around Informix for a long time can probably name all the communication protocols up through IDS 10.0 Our native Informix protocol is based on a SQLI thread (which allows us to do sqlidebugs, etc when we need information on a sql process). It also allows users to be able to work with any native Informix data type, which includes all the extended data types (such as collections and opaque data).

When Informix was acquired by IBM, it did not take long before there was an alternative protocol, known as the IBM Common Client driver. The most prominent name you will see in this driver set is DRDA (Distributed Relational Database Architecture). The original purpose for the DRDA protocol was to allow customers using the IBM Data Server Driver to connect to Informix in addition to IBM DB2. Indeed, DRDA is different from connection protocols such as soctcp or tlitcp. When the default communication protocol for a client is not able to use the SQLI protocol, the choice is DRDA. The DRDA driver is most often used in the form of a Java Common Client (JCC) driver, or .Net driver. IDS does not permit both SQLI and DRDA to connect through the same listener thread so we need to configure a listener thread and port to accept DRDA calls. This is done using an entry in the SQLHOSTS file:

<instance name> drsoctcp <hostname> <serviceport>

– David Jay


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.

Annual IIUG features survey

Before checking this month’s list, do not forget to complete the annual IIUG Features Survey that we have created for you. This survey is a summary of this past year’s most significant new features requests from the RFE website for Informix products.

By casting your vote for your favorite Informix new features, you will give extra momentum to those RFEs and contribute to turning them into actual Informix features.

This survey should not take you more than 10 min. The IBM Lab wants to hear from you, don’t miss this opportunity!

Visit the survey here.

Things are moving on the RFE website. It is now possible to order the RFE’s by ‘New’ (most recently created or ‘Hot’ (that received highest number of votes). The good thing is, now it is easy to identify RFE’s in the ‘under consideration’ status, meaning these are the RFE’s that are on the way to being implemented. Check the list using the ‘Hot’ sort and see that RFE’s are analyzed by the DEV team and used to implement new functionality. I will now include the top 5 RFE’s and their status in the Insider

Do not forget to vote for one or several of those RFE’s if they fit your requirements. The more votes, the more chances that the Dev Team will seriously consider the request.

(Login at DeveloperWorks to see the RFEs.)

Top 5 RFEs

22
votes
New feature to have FORCE_DDL_EXEC functionality for all DDL changesThe 12.10 manual states that the FORCE_DDL_EXEC environment variable can be used “to force out other transactions that have opened or have locks on the tables involved in an ALTER FRAGMENT ON TABLE op…

Submitted


20
votes
Backup from RSS or HDR Secondaries using ontape, onunload, onbar, dbexportIn HDR enviroments, being able to backup or export databases from and HDR, HDR read-only, or an RSS secondary server is critical. Programs like ontape, onunload, dbexport, and onbar generate locks on …

Under Consideration


17
votes
Implementation of regular expressions (adding to LIKE/MATCHES functions)Implementing regular expression matching in the engine.
This could be in the form of new functions or extending the functionality of LIKE and MATCHES functions (both or just one).

Current LIKE and MA…

Under Consideration


12
votes
Implement CREATE OR REPLACE option for stored proceduresWe are looking to deploy more code into the system hot, taking advantage of improvements have made to trap any -710 errors internally and re-parse transparent to the user session.

Currently it is nec…

Under Consideration


12
votes
Need an onmode option to terminate orphaned, tightly coupled global transac…If a Java application that uses tightly coupled global transactions (such as from Geronimo / WebSphere app servers) abnormally terminates, it may leave the global transaction orphaned on the Informix …

Under Consideration


New RFEs for July 2015

Backup from RSS or HDR Secondaries using ontape, onunload, onbar, dbexport (45728)
Last updated: 13 Jul 2015
Under Consideration
20 Votes

Implementation of regular expressions (adding to LIKE/MATCHES functions) (41329)
Last updated: 07 Jul 2015
Under Consideration
17 Votes

Implement CREATE OR REPLACE option for stored procedures (36229)
Last updated: 25 Jul 2015
Under Consideration
12 Votes

syslog support for informix audit logging. or an easier mechanism to forward logs in the shortterm (58678)
Last updated: 21 Jul 2015
Submitted
8 Votes

Character length semantics instead of byte length semantics (47787)
Last updated: 06 Jul 2015
Submitted
8 Votes

Get open tables information (68383)
Last updated: 17 Jul 2015
Declined
7 Votes

Only in-memory Temp table (54307)
Last updated: 07 Jul 2015
Submitted
7 Votes

Accelerating Subqueries in IWA (60731)
Last updated: 07 Jul 2015
Under Consideration
6 Votes

Add COALESCE function (70108)
Last updated: 07 Jul 2015
Submitted
4 Votes

Connection Manager Support for all Possible connection types (DRDA/SQLI/Mongo API/REST) (70896)
Last updated: 15 Jul 2015
Declined
2 Votes

Functionality for optimizer to prevent it to miscalculate the plan to execute derivedtable query (72783)
Last updated: 07 Jul 2015
Submitted
2 Votes

CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW (73546)
Last updated: 07 Jul 2015
Submitted

Function to move sysadmin database (72339)
Last updated: 06 Jul 2015
Submitted
2 Votes

Take some time to examine the full list and vote for the enhancements you would like to see implemented.

Gary Ben-Israel


Informix corner Back to top

Release of Informix Support for MAC OS

IBM #Informix 12.10 xC5 support for MAC OS is released. Informix is the only enterprise-class database that supports MacOS. MAC OS users can now benefit from the high-availability features of Informix and also the single database support for SQL/ #NOSQL without the need for separate data engines.

You can now download the Developer and Time-limited editions.

IoT Micro-event at San Jose on August 17th

Constructing the Internet-Of-Things solution- Presented by IBM Informix and Intel.

Join IBM, Intel and Hildebrand for a special IoT event on August 17th, at the IBM Executive Briefing Center at San Jose, CA. This half-day special event will feature a real world solution using IBM and Intel Gateway Platform and analytics solutions.

Come and learn how real world solutions can be implemented now and take the opportunity to meet the IBM and Intel teams supporting IoT industry solutions.

Register for the event.

The 2015 Informix Roadshow

The 2015 Informix Roadshow will be in Chicago and Toronto next week and 2 other cities in August. This free, one day event will cover the changing positioning of Informix, the latest features in Informix 12 and a deep dive into database multi-tenancy. There are a number of exciting features to cover including rolling (no outage) upgrades to H/A clusters, expanded NoSQL and TimeSeries functionality, session-level user constraints and much more.

Breakfast starts at 8:30 am with the event starting at 9 am.

Click here for more details about the Roadshow schedule and register for the event closest to you.

c.-DRS: cedros Data Retention Server

Telecommunication Operators and Internet Service Providers are bound to supply law enforcement authorities with access to customer data and call detail records on request as required by national law and the EU Data Retention Directive. The data must be retained for a given amount of time specified by law (usually 6-24 month).

The cedros Data Retention Server (c.-DRS) fulfills these requirements by supplying an integrated solution to load and store those CDRs in various formats (telephony, ip access and e-mail). The flexible transaction processing kernel has been optimized for processing various types of data streams (usually CSV files). Based on IBM Informix 12 the solution provides a high performance and scalability loading billions of CDRs at 10.000+ records per second.

Informix on the Leaderboard among databases in the G2 Crowd user reviews

See the review results here.


Calendar of events Back to top

August – 2015
Date Event Location Contact
11 2015 Informix Roadshow Chicago, IL Carlton Doe
13 2015 Informix Roadshow Toronto, Canada Carlton Doe
18 2015 Informix Roadshow Montreal, Canada Carlton Doe
25 2015 Informix Roadshow Seattle, Washington Carlton Doe
September – 2015
Date Event Location Contact
1 2015 Informix Roadshow Boston, MA Carlton Doe
22 2015 Informix Roadshow Salt Lake City, Utah Carlton Doe
24 2015 Informix Roadshow New York City, New York Carlton Doe
October – 2015
Date Event Location Contact
1 2015 Informix Roadshow Atlanta, Georgia Carlton Doe
25-29 IBM Insight2015 Las Vegas, Nevada

 


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.
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.