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 Update on IIUG Events for 2020
5.1 Streaming Analytics Using Asynchronous Post Commit Triggers Webinar
5.2 Informix 14.10 Now Supports Common Table Expressions Webinar
6.1 Think Digital Event Experience
8.3 Forums, Groups, Videos, and Magazines
Table of Contents
Editorial
Like most of the world I’m in a lock down due to the COVID 19 Corona virus.
Only virtual events are taking place. And work for many of us has slowed down or stopped.
I wish good health to all.
Stay safe.
Gary Ben-Israel
IIUG Insider Editor
IIUG Board of Directors
2) Highlights
2.1 Update on IIUG Events for 2020
March 23, 2020 by Cindy Lichtenauer
Hello IIUG Members and Informix Enthusiasts!
Just a quick update on the IIUG and our plans for 2020.
As an international organization with Board members around the world, we’ve been working virtually since the organization’s founding to provide the Informix community with Technical Events and important Informix updates. That work continues today.
We had several events planned in India with the International DB2 User Group, which were cancelled due to potential health concerns. We expect to reschedule those sometime later this year.
In lieu of holding one major event, we have been planning additional IIUG-only events in Chicago, New York City, London and Munich, to name a few. These events are intended to ensure you have the latest marketing and technical information about Informix as well as gather your feedback on what the IIUG and Informix development can do to better support your environment. Locations were identified and reservations made, however, due to the same health concerns, we have decided to put all events on hold. We will let you know as soon as they are re-scheduled.
We wish you and your family safety and health and look forward to continuing to work with you and for you in 2020.
Sincerely,
Cindy Lichtenauer
President – International Informix Users Group
3) IBM Informix Forum Corner
Join and visit the IBM Informix community forum at /community
Recent posts
Cannot create surrogate user on IDS 12.10FC14
Integrated Backup Encryption and compression
more questions on utils2_ak build
Gary Ben-Israel
4) RFE Corner
IBM has created a new RFE – Request For Enhancements website.
https://ibm-data-and-ai.ideas.aha.io/?project=INFX
Please visit this site to vote for your favorite enhancements and place new requests.
As you can see, it is a new RFE site. It is friendly and has a nice look and feel.
Recent
Throttle writes during chunk creation
Votes: 2
Created March, 18 2020
Status: Needs review
Config for the server to refuse to start if shared memory segments do not use huge pages.
Votes: 4
Created March, 7 2020
Status: Needs review
Popular (Over 50 votes)
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: 96
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: 81
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: 66
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: 64
Created: December 24, 2018
Status: Future consideration
Gary Ben-Israel
5) Informix Corner
5.1 Streaming Analytics Using Asynchronous Post Commit Triggers Webinar
/event/streaming-analytics-using-asynchronous-post-commit-triggers-webinar/
April 21 @ 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
5.2 Informix 14.10 Now Supports Common Table Expressions Webinar
/event/informix-14-10-now-supports-common-table-expressions-webinaf/
May 19 @ 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
6 Events
6.1 Think Digital Event Experience
Accelerate essential recovery and transformation
https://www.ibm.com/events/think/
May 5–6, 2020
7) How To
Adding to a datetime column
It is simple if you are familiar with the UNIT operator.
For a datetime year to second column datetime_example the syntax is:
select datetime_example + inc_val UNITS type
When inc_val is an integer and type is one of:
YEAR
MONTH
DAY
MINUTE
SECOND
8) Informix Resources
IIUG website
www.iiug.org
IBM Informix community
/community
8.1 Informix Blogs and Wikis
Blogs and Wikis that have been updated during the last month
-
Art Kagel http://informix-myview.blogspot.co.il/ (Last updated November 2019)
-
Andrés Repossi https://andreserepossi.wixsite.com/hablemosinformix (In Spanish)
8.2 Social Media
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/25049
Twitter : https://twitter.com/iiug
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/IIUG.Informix
8.3 Forums, Groups, Videos, and Magazines
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The IIUG old forums at /forums/technical.php *** NO LONGER ACTIVE ***
-
Informix Marketing channel on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/user/informixmarketing?feature=results_main
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
