Highlights: HCL RELEASES INFORMIX ON AMAZON WEB SERVICES (AWS)

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:

1) Editorial
2) Highlights
2.1 HCL RELEASES INFORMIX ON AMAZON WEB SERVICES (AWS)
3) Conference Corner
3.1 IIUG WORLD 2018 – Call for Speakers Opening Soon
3.2 IIUG Past Event Sessions and Documentation
4) RFE Corner
5) Informix News
5.1 Where is Informix documentation?
6) Informix Resources
6.1 Informix Blogs and Wikis
6.2 Social Media
6.3 Forums, Groups, Videos, and Magazines

Editorial

There is a Zen saying: “If a tree falls in a forest and there is nobody there what noise does it make?” Informix is not falling. It is up and running. It is still the best database for OLTP. But no one hears about it.
No Informix on the news. Only 3 blogs this month. Only 2 more in the past 6 months and that’s it. No technical articles by support engineers. No success stories.
For us hard core Informix users it is still our beloved product. But, if we want new users HCL and IBM need to start talking about Informix.
This Insider is short. Sorry but I can only compile content. Not create it.

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

2) Highlights

2.1 HCL RELEASES INFORMIX ON AMAZON WEB SERVICES (AWS)

BREAKING NEWS!
Check out the key capabilities of Informix on AWS.
https://www.hcltech.com/products-and-platforms/informix/informix-AWS

3) Conference Corner

3.1 IIUG WORLD 2018 – Call for Speakers Opening Soon

IIUG World 2018 will be hosted by the Renaissance Arlington Capital View Hotel, Washington D.C. and will be held October 28th – November 1st, 2018.
This is a beautiful hotel and convenient to Reagan National Airport. It is also convenient to many historical sites, museums and other local attractions Washington D.C. is noted for. To learn more about this venue check out www.marriott.com/waspy.
We are updating our website in preparation of IIUG 2018 speaker submissions. Our goal is to have speaker registration open no later than April 1, 2018.
We will send an email announcing the submission website is open and provide you instructions regarding where to submit a brief overview of your topic. The email will also share the benefits of becoming an IIUG World 2018 presenter. We would like to thank our past speakers who helped make our IIUG events the best Informix event offered and would be happy to have you return. We are always looking for new speakers who might have a passion for Informix and/or related software to share their knowledge. So, start thinking of some topics you are interested in sharing with our IIUG attendees and help us make this event the best ever.
IIUG World 2018 registration should open shortly after the call for speakers.

Information regarding the current IIUG event, 2018, will be found at www.iiug.org/iiugworld. This includes everything you will need to know about the current event. This site is updated as new information is ready for release.

Hope to see you there.
IIUG World 2018 Planning Committee

3.2 IIUG‘s Past Event Sessions and Documentation

Looking for information or sessions from past IIUG events? We have it! We have updated our website to make this information available to you for the 2008 – 2017 events.
The IIUG has compiled much of the content from the past 10 years of IIUG events. It works like this, just go to www.iiug.org/iiugworld/YYYY, where YYYY is the year you are looking for and where that year’s documentation will be found. For example the information for 2008 will be found at /iiugworld/2008/. Hope you find what you are looking for.
Visit www.iiug.org/iiugworld/previous to download any or all of the content.
You’re welcome!

4) RFE Corner

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 for 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 a few days ago and will definitely keep registered, due to the value of the information delivered.

Check at this place.
Just one new RFE in February.

Separate user for working with Informix CDC API

Currently the Informix CDC API requires the use of the ‘informix’ account. We would like the Informix CDC API modified so that it can run in a fully supported fashion as a separate user.
Submitted. One vote.

TOP 15 RFE’s

Abstract	Status	Votes	Progr.
In-Place Alter for varchar, lvarchar and boolean	Under Consideration	59	0
Backup from RSS or HDR Secondaries using ontape, onunload, onbar, dbexport	Under Consideration	58	0
SQL interface to obtain the temporary space usage (tables, hash, sorts…)	Under Consideration	50	0
Obtain the query plan of a running query	Under Consideration	48	0
Request to track and save a time stamp for last time an index was used. Nee…	Delivered	40	0
Backup Individual database, not entire instance	Submitted	34	0
ALTER owner of database objects after creation	Submitted	29	0
Implement CREATE OR REPLACE option for stored procedures	Under Consideration	27	0
Informix should be able to change owner on tables and any other objects	Submitted	24	+1
New feature to have FORCE_DDL_EXEC functionality for all DDL changes	Submitted	24	?
Implementation of regular expressions (adding to LIKE/MATCHES functions)	Under consideration	22	?
Ability to re-create views and procedures without dependent objects being dropped (34762	Under consideration	20	0
Need an onmode option to terminate orphaned, tightly coupled global transac…	Under Consideration	19	0
Allow triggers install/updates without taking an outage for the box (57792)	Under Consideration	18	0
Allow “group commit” as other RDBMS (45166)	Under Consideration	18	0

Do not forget to vote for one or several of those RFE’s if they fit your requirements. The more vote, the more chances that the Dev Team will seriously consider the request.
You can access each RFE by clicking on the above links. At the bottom of each RFE page you will find a hyperlink to vote for it. You will see the Request stats, including number of votes for this request, on the right side of the request page. The more votes, the greater the chance an enhancement will be addressed by the Development Team, taking into consideration the general interest.

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

5) Informix News

5.1 Where is Informix documentation?

It seems no one owns it anymore.
IBM dropped it and HCL didn’t pick it up. The last documented release was 12.1 xC8.
It is great having many new features but it is hard to use them without documentation. I hope this problem will be addressed in the near future.
You can find some documentation in:
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSGU8G_12.1.0/com.ibm.welcome.doc/welcome.htm
It is well organized, however, if you look at the manuals the latest version documented is still 12.10 xC8.
Gary Ben-Israel

6) Informix Resources

IBM Informix home page
www.informix.com or directly at: http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/informix/

6.1 Informix Blogs and Wikis

Blogs and Wikis that have been updated during the last month

• Blogs, Videos, News and more at http://planetids.com *** Up to date feeds from many blogs ***
• Ben Thompson’s blog at: https://informixdba.wordpress.com/
• Andrés Repossi https://andreserepossi.wixsite.com/hablemosinformix (In Spanish)

More Blogs and Wikis

• Eric Vercelletto http://www.levillageinformix.blogspot.com/ (In French)
• Art Kagel http://informix-myview.blogspot.co.il/

6.2 Social Media

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/25049
Twitter : https://twitter.com/iiug
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/IIUG.Informix
Informix IoT Channel : https://ibm.biz/BdH2nm

6.3 Forums, Groups, Videos, and Magazines

• The IIUG forums at /forums/technical.php
• Informix Marketing channel on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/user/informixmarketing?feature=results_main
• IBM DATABASE MAGAZINE at http://www.ibmdatabasemag.com
• Credentials, the IBM Certification Newsletter at http://www-03.ibm.com/certify/email/201307credentials.shtml

• The Informix Zone at http://www.informix-zone.com
• There is now an 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. To join, simply go to: http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/25049/5E4B2048E558

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.

Editor: Gary Ben-Israel
For comments, please send an email to gary@iiug.org