Highlights: Informix Webinars
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:
2.2 IBM Virtual User Group Days – Replay
6.3 Forums, Groups, Videos, and Magazines
Table of Contents
1) Editorial
Recovering from eye surgery. Work is hard but I’m doing my best for you guys.
Only virtual events are taking place.
And work for many of us has slowed down or stopped. It will take a while until things will return to normal.
I wish good health to all.
Stay safe.
Gary Ben-Israel
IIUG Insider Editor
IIUG Board of Directors
2) Highlights
2.1 Informix Webinars
Connecting Users and Tools to Informix Servers by Lester Knutsen
Thursday, June 25, 2020, at 2:00 pm EDT
How do you connect users and tools to an Informix Server from Windows, Unix, and the Web? We will discuss connections using Microsoft ODBC, Informix SDK, REST, MongoDB, Jave, PHP, and other options.
Registration: https://advancedatatools.webex.com/advancedatatools/j.php?RGID=ra5d04057cddd817a01b3738a2a7fc600
Creating Databases, Tables and managing Security by Lester Knutsen
Thursday, July 23, 2020, at 2:00 pm EDT
How do you build databases and tables in Informix? We will discuss best practices for creating and managing databases and tables, partitioning, and database security.
Registration: https://advancedatatools.webex.com/advancedatatools/j.php?RGID=rd0cb7010aa2266087ca21a07c315b2f3
Informix Database Server Monitoring by Lester Knutsen
Thursday, August 20, 2020, at 2:00 pm EDT
How do you use the command-line utilities to manage and monitor an Informix Server? We will discuss onstat, oncheck, and the new InformixHQ to manage your server.
Registration: https://advancedatatools.webex.com/advancedatatools/j.php?RGID=rc930d7ff9bfc8ecd37a6ea5dcf663aa1
More info and registration at https://advancedatatools.com/Informix/NextWebcast.html
Free Informix How-to Webcast videos, Browse at – https://advancedatatools.com/tech-info/past-webcasts/
2.2 IBM Virtual User Group Days – Session Replay
We hope you were able to attend IBM’s Virtual User Group Days held May 19 and 20, 2020. There were a lot of great sessions during this 2-day event.
IBM has made the session replays available for the next 90 days. Therefore, if you couldn’t make the event or, you missed a session or maybe you need a refresher about a session you attended session, take this time to review the replay list.
Visit http://www.ibm.biz/usergroupday and click on “Watch Replays Now” in upper right corner to view the list of available replays.
3) IBM Informix Forum Corner
Join and visit the IBM Informix community forum at http://www.iiug.org/community
Recent posts
Execution of Long Restores Remotely
Write Problem w/ Solaris Volume Manager Mirror
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
Automatic conversion of ifx_loc_t (TEXT/BYTE) to/from ifx_lo_t (CLOB/BLOB)
Votes: 2
Created May, 27 2020
Status: Needs review
A tmp database created with the server, analogous to the /tmp file system
Votes: 3
Created May, 21 2020
Status: Needs review
Allow genBSON to process a MULTISET datatype
Votes: 1
Created May, 14 2020
Status: Needs review
Perform update statistics based on selected Fragments of a table
Votes: 1
Created May, 11 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: 98
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: 83
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: 68
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: 66
Created: December 24, 2018
Status: Future consideration
Gary Ben-Israel
5) How To
back_ref_view
This is a view my developers use when they want to find which tables are referencing the table they are dealing with.
Some SQL editors can display this information but even when they do it is not always intuitive or easy.
In DBACCESS for instance it takes you six steps. At least that’s what it takes me.
Needless to say my developers are not familiar with DBACCESS and are not logged in to an Informix server.
Performing this with a simple select statement can be helpful.
The view uses the following system tables:
systables, sysconstraints, sysindexes, syscolumns and sysreferences
create view back_ref_view
(referenced_table, referenced_column, referencing_table, referencing_column,
cascading_delete, constraint_name, back_ref_view_ik) as
SELECT a.tabname
d.colname,
g.tabname,
i.colname,
CASE
WHEN e.delrule = “C” THEN
“Yes”
ELSE
“No”
END cascaing_delete,
f.constrname,
f.constrid
FROM systables a, sysconstraints b, sysindexes c, syscolumns d,
sysreferences e, sysconstraints f, systables g, sysindexes h,
syscolumns i
WHERE b.tabid = a.tabid
AND b.constrtype = “P”
AND c.idxname = b.idxname
AND d.tabid = c.tabid
AND d.colno = c.part1
AND e.primary = b.constrid
AND f.constrid = e.constrid
AND g.tabid = f.tabid
AND h.idxname = f.idxname
AND i.tabid = h.tabid
AND i.colno = h.part1;
6) Informix Resources
IIUG website
www.iiug.org
IBM Informix community
http://www.iiug.org/community
6.1 Informix Blogs and Wikis
Blogs and Wikis
- Andrés Repossi https://andreserepossi.wixsite.com/hablemosinformix (In Spanish)
- Art Kagel http://informix-myview.blogspot.co.il/ (Last updated November 2019)
6.2 Social Media
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/25049
Twitter : https://twitter.com/iiug
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/IIUG.Informix
6.3 Forums, Groups, Videos, and Magazines
- The IIUG old forums at http://www.iiug.org/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
