Highlights: Free Database Download-Informix
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:
2.1 Free Database Download-Informix
3.1 IIUG World 2019 Session Grid is now available
3.2 Don’t forget to attend the Customer Advisory Council (CAC)
5.1 Video on how to use the new 14.10 installer
6.3 Forums, Groups, Videos, and Magazines
Table of Contents
1) Editorial
Once upon a time, there were many forums in the IIUG member’s area.
As time passed forums became irrelevant. Products that were no longer used or lack of interest.
Finally, the only active forum left was IDS.
Due to changes in our Web technology, we can no longer support this forum.
The new home for Informix forum is now is the IBM community site /community
We are happy to be part of the Data and AI user community and thank IBM for hosting our forum.
This is the place to find Informix technical content and to have your questions answered by the best Informix professionals.
Pleas follow the link register as a forum member and start participating.
By doing so, you are helping yourselves, the Informix user community and Informix.
Although posts may lose their relevance over time we are planning to import, the posts form the IDS forum so you can feel at home and find what you need.
Gary Ben-Israel
IIUG Insider Editor
IIUG Board of Directors
2) Highlights
2.1 Free Database Download-Informix
No one needs to ever use an open source database. With Informix you can get a free download, and the best User group to help you use and support it. The new out of the box configurations for version 14.10+ start up your instance with an excellent start up configuration.
Informix Developer’s Edition is a fully functional Informix database for the purpose of developing new systems. The DE version is realized for every new fix pack version of Informix.
Download:
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/downloads/im/informix/
IBM Information on Developer’s Edition:
http://www-03.ibm.com/software/products/en/infodeveedit
Informix Innovator C is a scaled down version of the Informix Engine with the primary database functionality but without many of the advanced features like replication. It is allowed to be used for any life cycle, development or production.
http://www-03.ibm.com/software/products/en/infoinnoedit
For more information on the Informix Family of products.
https://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/informix/downloads.html
And if you want a Docker install go here:
https://hub.docker.com/r/ibmcom/informix-innovator-c/
Gary Ben-Israel
3) Conference Corner
3.1 IIUG World 2019 Session Grid is now available
IIUG World 2019 will be held September 22-26, 2019 at the Torrance Marriott Redondo Beach (Las Angeles), California, USA.
Now you can start making your plans for your week full of technical content. Select from topics such as: 14.10, administration, development, tuning, security, etc. You should be able to find many sessions to suit your needs. The full grid can be found at: /iiugworld/speakers/2019/pubsessgrid.php.
There are also several General sessions you will not want to miss:
- Monday morning keynote “Al on AI” with Al Martin
- Tuesday morning Keynote join Radha Ratnaparkhi discussing “From Data to AI”
- There will also be a brief IIUG membership meeting Wednesday morning to share what they have been working on and presentation of this year’s Board of Director’s award
- Wednesday afternoon, join us for a favorite “Ask the Experts Session. Meet with top developers and engineers and get you questions answered
We have something NEW this year to help you plan your schedule. IIUG World sessions have been imported into sched.com. You can use the website https://iiugworld2019.sched.com or download the app.to set up your session schedule.
You will also want to meet with this year’s sponsors to see if they have any offerings that will meet your business needs: IBM of course, Advanced DataTools, Integrated Data Consulting and Xtivia.
We also are planning two great evening events: Sunday Night’s welcome reception and Tuesday evening Casino Night. Since there are so many things to do and see this year, we thought you would appreciate having Monday and Wednesday evening to enjoy the local area.
Some important deadlines to keep in mind:
- Room rate of $179 ends September 6th. After that you will have to call the Torrance Marriott yourself to see if you can get the special IIUG World 2019 rate to book you room go to /iiugworld/book-room.php
- You can still use you $100 Member discount, to register use https://www.iiug.org/conf/2019/iiug/register.php
IIUG World Planning Committee
3.2 Don’t forget to attend the Customer Advisory Council (CAC)
The 2019 Customer Advisory Council (CAC) meeting will be held prior to the IIUG World conference on Sunday Sept 22 from 10am-4pm local time. The purpose of the CAC is to gather detailed feedback and usage experiences from our customers and partners. Attendance is by invitation to past and new members of the CAC to promote an active discussion format.
If you would like to attend the CAC and have not yet received an invitation, please send an email request to one of the following:
Rajesh Govindan IBM Informix Marketing Manager
Milind Tamaskar IBM Informix Product Manager
Current CAC members will receive a direct invitation by email.
We look forward to seeing you at IIUG World 2019!
4) RFE Corner
IBM has created a new RFE – Request For Enhancements website.
https://ibm-data-and-ai.ideas.aha.io/ideas
Please visit this site to vote for your favorite enhancements and place new requests.
As you can see it is a new RFE site is friendly and has a nice look and feel.
Recent
Informix pure .NET Core driver
We need pure .NET Core driver. Currently we have to compile our programs with flags for 32 or 64 bit code which is against the idea of .NET Core portability. Also it leads to errors when we sent assemblies to incorrect environment.
Driver on OpenShift platform (“light containers”) is a joke – it is heavy (180M) causing long time of deployment.
Votes: 1
Created: August 31, 2019
Status: Future consideration
Enhance EXPLAIN in order to no longer need Informix server access
Currently Informix EXPLAIN generates a server side file. For developers that are working from remote machines, it becomes problematic to retrieve the explain files when they have restricted access to the Informix Server machine.
There are 2 undocumented functions that can be used but they have limited functionality : ifx_explain and bson_explain .
These functions return the optimizer plan, but cannot return a statistics section ( the sql statement is never actually executed, so there is no statistics section ).
Informix should be enhanced to allow a remote client to retrieve the output of the EXPLAIN plan and the statistics section.
Such capability would greatly benefits developers that have restricted access do the Informix server machine, has it happens in many corporate environments.
Votes: 1
Created: August 30, 2019
Status: Needs review
Developers have the Informix Client SDK installed on their workstations / application development machines.
There is the need to be able to dump the Informix databases schemas definitions, but the SDK does not provide any such tool.
To work around the issue, we have to either use 3rd party tools, give the developers shell access to the Informix server or install the server binaries on the developer machines.
If the dbschema tool is bundled in the Informix Client SDK, the need for the workarounds is avoided.
Votes: 1
Created: August 30, 2019
Status: Needs review
Informix Enterprise Gateway – add support for Oracle NVARCHAR2 datatype
Need to access a table in Oracle 11g with datatype NVARCHAR2 , but always fail with error :
29050: Error accessing schema information (field number 4 SQL type not recognized.{Sub=0x0430,Ifx=-29044,Obj=TARGE).
Votes: 1
Created: August 23, 2019
Status: Needs review
dump query plan from queries in Statement Cache
Provides the ability to produce a query plan from any query that exists in the Statement Cache. Once a query is in the cache, there may be some question if it was cached with the proper query plan. Since there is no current way to confirm this, we now have a way to view the plan.
Votes: 1
Created: August 22, 2019
Status: Needs review
Informix 14.10 should available for macOS
Votes: 1
Created: August 14, 2019
Status: Needs review
IF NOT EXISTS should not be saved as part of stored routine source
When creating a stored procedure or function with the IF NOT EXISTS optional clause included, the option text is currently included in the saved source code for the procedure. This is not true of any other database object created with the IF NOT EXISTS clause included!
This should be changed such that the optional clause is removed before saving the procedure source code in sysprocbody.
Votes: 6
Created: August 1, 2019
Status: Future consideration
Popular
Backup from RSS or HDR Secondaries using ontape, onunload, onbar, dbexport
In HDR environments, 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 tables during backups and data-exports. This creates problems while applications and users using Informix try to use the system during backups in 24 x 7 x 365 production environments. Being able to backup or export data on secondary systems is critical for compliance and backup integrity.
Votes: 80
Created: December 24, 2018
Status: Future consideration
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: 64
Created: December 24, 2018
Status: Future consideration
SQL interface to obtain the temporary space usage (tables, hash, sorts…)
A DBA and possibly a programmer needs an easy way to monitor who is responsible for the temporary space usage.
Currently it’s possible a user may be consuming a lot of temporary space and impacting other sessions, without the DBA being able to quick and easily identify the session responsible.
Other reports (from IIUG mailing list) and another RFE (36245) mentions the need for programmers to be able to find out the current session’s temp tables (onstat -g ses shows this).
The definitive solution for this should be an SQL interface showing:
– session ID
– object name
– object type (explicit temp table, implicit temp table, hash join, sort …?)
– used space
– chunk/dbspace being used
– owner nam
– ??? (PID and others, but probably thos can be gathered with joins)
This should supersede RFE ID 36245 and this includes the request for that RFE and more.
Votes: 60
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: 52
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: 52
Created: December 24, 2018
Status: Future consideration
Gary Ben-Israel
5) Informix Corner
5.1 Video on how to use the new 14.10 installer
With the release of IBM Informix v.14.10, there is a significant change to how Informix is installed and migration occurs across different editions. Instead of separate binaries for each Informix edition, there is a single universal binary but edition specific license files which control which features are enabled. This allows customers to download one binary bundle and use it throughout their enterprise. With the appropriate license file, customers can select which edition to activate or can easily change editions without extensive downtime or having to re-install the entire system potentially overwriting critical files. This short video by Carlton Doe explains how this new installation process works.
5.2 Informix Community
Become a member if the IBM Informix Community. This is a relatively new offering from IBM. As a member, you can meet other Informix users online to exchange information and ideas, access several blogs and white papers and many other Informix related news and events. Join at /community.
6) Informix Resources
IIUG website
www.iiug.org
IBM Informix home page
www.informix.com or directly at: http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/informix/
IBM Informix community
/community
6.1 Informix Blogs and Wikis
Blogs and Wikis that have been updated during the last month
- Art Kagel http://informix-myview.blogspot.co.il/
- Andrés Repossi https://andreserepossi.wixsite.com/hablemosinformix (In Spanish)
More Blogs and Wikis
- IBM Blogs https://www.ibmbigdatahub.com/tag/550
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
- 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
