Highlights: IIUG Board meeting February 4
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.
We were planning a face to face in February hoping that if not all some of us will attend.
But once again we had a virtual meeting.
Planning ahead is very hard with COVID. We are still hoping to have a hybrid conference towards the end of 2022. But there are too many unknown variables. We are depending on different laws in each country, different company policies and flight cancelations.Things are changing daily so trying to predict what will be six months from now is impossible.
Stay tuned and keep reading the Insider. At least the Insider is not directly affected.
I still hope to meet you face to face. Until then, take care.
Gary Ben-Israel
IIUG Insider Editor
IIUG Board of Directors
Highlights
IIUG Board meeting February 4
The IIUG Board had a virtual meeting.
Using WebEx is not as good as meeting face to face but it was the best we could do.
We covered our daily operations, the IIUG site, our server, the Insider and the YouTube channel.
We met with Shripad Sonavay, the new Informix product manager. It was a good meeting. We hope he will remain in this position long enough to follow up on our action items.
Our interaction with HCL is close to zero. I’m not even sure who is on the Informix team.
We will keep doing our best for the IIUG user community.
Gary Ben-Israel
Informix Corner
Informix Tech Talks on YouTube
Informix TechTalk: Intro to Informix Performance Tunning by Lester Knutsen
Date: Thursday, March 10, 2022, 2:00 pm EST
Description: Lester Knutsen will present his top 10 Informix Database Servers performance tuning tips. The Webcast is a free introduction to Informix performance from the first lecture of his Advanced Informix Performance Tuning Course. This will also be our first test of a Webcast using Zoom.
Please register – https://www.iiug.org/en/services/next-webcast/
Last Informix TechTalk Replay
Informix TechTalk: All about Informix data export and Import tools by Art S. Kagel
Date: Thursday, February 10, 2022, 2:00pm EST
Description: Art will share his latest testing on Informix data export and Import tools, loading and unloading data. Art will discuss his newest version of myexport that can do an INFORMIX mode export and import. He will share info on unloads and loads with UNLOAD/LOAD, external tables in DELIMITED mode, external tables in INFORMIX mode, and my binary load/unload utility ul.ec on tables with different types of data.
The replay is available at: https://www.iiug.org/en/category/techtalks/
Informix 14.10.FC7 Update by Carlton Doe
Title: What is new in Informix 14.10.FC7 by Carlton Doe, IBM
Description:
The Informix FC7 fix pack was released in late November 2021. While some of the features are documented, others aren’t. This session is a comprehensive review of all the new or changed functionality in this release.
Carlton Doe, IBM, made this presentation to the German IUG on February 1, 2022. The German IUG made this recording. The German IUG is a very active community of Informix customers, partners, distributors, and friends in Germany and other German-speaking countries in Europe: Austria and Switzerland. Thank you to Dr. Julio Aspiazu, IUG President, for sharing this with Informix users worldwide.
On YouTube, https://youtu.be/qwqoipH3FoE
Informix Sessions from the IBM Community Festival 2021
The Informix Sessions from the IBM Community Festival 2021 last November are available on our website and at our YouTube channel:
https://www.iiug.org/en/2022/02/04/ibm-community-festival-2021/
Securing Informix Connections With SSL by Thomas Beebe
On YouTube – https://youtu.be/95cPudUtxaE
How to optimize your data using TimeSeries with Informix by Mike Walker
On YouTube – https://youtu.be/VQ9Nc5ERv_w
Getting Serious About Redundancy using Informix! by Tom Girsch
On YouTube – https://youtu.be/d80VJymb9LI
Past Informix Tech Talks
All the past Informix Tech Talks are available as replays on our website at:
https://www.iiug.org/en/category/techtalks/
Informix Tech Talk YouTube Channel
Our channel on YouTube for Informix Users has over XX Informix Technical Videos, with over 244 subscribers and more the XXXX views! This Youtube Channel will be a place for Informix how-to videos.
All videos on Informix Tech Talk YouTube Channel – https://www.youtube.com/c/InformixTechTalksbytheIIUG
Lester Knutsen
Informix Training for 2022 from Advanced DataTools
We have moved our training servers to the cloud. I have taught our Informix for Database Administrators Course and the Advanced Informix Performance Tuning Course in our new cloud environment. We continue developing and updating our course formats for a more flexible combination of instructor-led and self-paced course material with the same performance tuning benchmarks labs.
Our Informix training is:
– Instructor lead online classes by Zoom or WebEx
– Four days of hands-on Informix Experience
– Each student has a separate AWS Informix server for exercises and labs
– Participate in Q&A and collaborative class discussions
– All courses are taught by Lester Knutsen, IBM Informix Lifetime Champion, with over 40 years of Informix experience.
Our two primary Informix courses for 2022
Informix for Database Administrators Training Course – May 9-12, 2022
This course is for new or experienced database administrators, programmers, and technical support personnel setting up and managing Informix 14, 12, or 11 databases. The course is four days course covering the topics listed in the link below.
More info at https://advancedatatools.com/training/dba-course/
Advanced Informix Performance Tuning Course – May 23-26, 2022
This 4-day course is for experienced Informix database administrators and application developers responsible for installing/upgrading, managing, optimizing, and tuning an Informix database server. Informix versions 14, 12, and 11 are covered.
More info at https://advancedatatools.com/training/advanced-course/
Free Informix Tutorials Videos – a step by step approach to using Informix Database Servers are available at https://advancedatatools.com/tech-info/informix-tutorials/
Technical Articles from Advanced DataTools
Over 10 Years of Informix Webcast Replays are available at:
https://advancedatatools.com/tech-info/past-webcasts/
Over 30 years of Informix Blog posts are available at:
https://advancedatatools.com/tech-info/all-tech-topics/
Lester Knutsen
Release documentation and machine notes for IBM Informix, v14.10.xC7 – IBM Documentation
https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/informix-servers/14.10?topic=informix-1410xc7
Lester Knutsen
RFE Corner
IBM has an 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. It is friendly and has a nice look and feel.
Recent
Allow Bufferpool Min_lru_dirty and Max_lru_dirty Threshold values to be altered dynamically
Request for an Informix CSDK port for MAC OS M1 processor
Popular (Over 50 votes)
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: 100 (+1)
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: 93 (+1)
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: 86 (+1)
Created: December 24, 2018
Status: Future consideration
Gary Ben-Israel
IBM Informix Forum Corner
Join and visit the IBM Informix community forum at http://www.iiug.org/community
Recent posts
Memory issue on Informix primary server
Enterprise replication can not sync data
Trusted remote servers – fail to connect without password
where can I download Informix 12.10FC7
Gary Ben-Israel
Informix Resources
IIUG website
www.iiug.org
IBM Informix community
http://www.iiug.org/community
Informix Blogs and Wikis
Please note: The list below contains only blogs that were active in the last six months.
There was nothing new in the past six months.
Technical articles
https://www.oninitgroup.com/technical-articles/
https://www.oninitgroup.com/faq-items/cloud-backups-with-informix-14-10/
Social Media
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/InformixTechTalksbytheIIUG
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/25049
Twitter : https://twitter.com/iiug
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/IIUG.Informix
Forums, Groups, Videos, and Magazines
-
The IIUG old forums at http://www.iiug.org/forums/technical.php *** NO LONGER ACTIVE ***
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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.
Editors: Gary Ben-Israel, Rhonda Hackenburg
For comments, please send an email to gary@iiug.org or rhonda@iiug.org