IIUG Insider (Issue #260) March 2022

Highlights: IIUG World 2021 Conference Sessions

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.

Editorial

Issuing the Insider becomes harder every month. Not because there is so much content to edit. On the contrary, nothing is happening with Informix and finding content is difficult.

It is easy to blame IBM or HCL, but the Informix user community is not much help either.

Just look at the section in the Insider about blogs and wikis (Section 6.1). It used to be divided into two sections blogs updated last month and blogs updated in the last six months. Since December 2021 even the section “blogs updated in the last six months” no longer exists. I’m leaving Section 6.1 as a place holder hoping that some day there will be new blogs to write about.

Gary Ben-Israel
IIUG Insider Editor
IIUG Board of Directors

gary@iiug.org

Highlights

IIUG World 2021 Conference Sessions

If you couldn’t attend IIUG World 2021, we have published the Sessions Replays online at:

https://www.iiug.org/en/2022/03/31/iiug-world-2021-conference-session-replays/

Lester Knutsen

 

Informix Corner

Why should you already be upgrading to Informix 14.10?

In this next article of the series, we would like to focus on the enhancements for statement cache that have been added.

Benefits: 14.10 has new, more intuitive system APIs and functionality around statement cache!

  • New sysadmin APIs to work with system cache:
    • execute function task(‘statement cache enable’);
    • execute function task(‘statement cache flush’);
    • execute function task(‘statement cache hits <numhits>’);
    • execute function task(‘statement cache nolimit <0/1>’);
    • execute function task(‘statement cache off’);
    • execute function task(‘statement cache on’);
  • The ability to save and restore the statement cache
  • The ability to produce a query plan from any query that exists in the statement cache via the dynamically tunable STMT_CACHE_QUERY_PLAN onconfig parameter.
    • The query plan is viewable in sysmaster:syssscelem.queryplan column
  • Avoid re-optimization when minor version of any table in statement changes (i.e. update statistics) by locking the query plan
    • Set sysmaster:syssscelem.queryplan column to 1 (as user Informix)
  • Invalidate a specific statement or statements giving you more precision to remove a bad query plan from the cache.
    • Set sysmaster:syssscelem.valid column to 0 (as user Informix)
    • Once statement is invalidated, it cannot be re-validated

Be sure to check back here in the coming months to see more reasons why you need to start that upgrade now!

Karen Qualley

 

IIUG World 2022

The IIUG Board is currently discussing options for IIUG World 2022.  We are looking for mid to late fall dates.  Please keep watching the Insider.  We will publish information as it becomes available.

Rhonda Hackenburg

IIUG Planning Committee

 

Informix Tech Talks on YouTube

In Search of Tech Talks Speakers

There is no presentation for our April Tech Talks.  Instead, the IIUG World 2021 Conference Session Replays were published for your review. 

We are looking for additional speakers and especially any new speakers to share your Informix knowledge with our user Community via the IIUG Tech Talks.  We will assist you in preparing for your Tech Talks presentation by prerecording your session.  This will allow you to be available to answer any questions that come up in the chat during you presentation.

If you are interested in producing a 15 – 45 minute presentation, please contact either Lester Knutsen or Rhonda Hackenburg for additional information.

Rhonda Hackenburg

 

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/

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

 

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

Supply DBD-Informix Driver for PERL DBI on Linux

Informix incremental backups (L1)

 

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 (+0)

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: 94 (+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 (+0)

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

Smartblob spaces

Multiple lines wtih “connection rejected” in online log when the instance is starting

Facing some difference in size between ‘onstat -d’ , ‘oncheck -ce’ and ‘syschunks’ table values for 8k page size dbspaces and chunks

Migrate database from Solaris 10 to Solaris 11

 

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

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

3 comments

  1. Hi IIUG Board, could the editorials be a little more uplifting please. This month’s is depressing (as were January’s and February’s) and could summarise the rest of the content if there really is nothing better to write about. On blogs, I would love to spend more time writing them but the reality for me at the moment is that there is cost cutting at work, putting more pressure on me there, plus I have a small child and a not inconsiderable house renovation in progress. Maybe in the future I will contribute more. There is a lot of unseen work we do working with support to identify bugs and improve product reliability and scalability. 14.10.FC7 is a truly excellent release and something to shout about.

  2. Here are some very recent things happening with Informix of which I am aware:
    * transformational improvement to ER speed, scalability and reliability delivered in 14.10.FC6
    * long-standing data dictionary cache (ddh chain mutex) issues which can choke systems resolved in 14.10.FC7.
    * speed improvements in 14.10.FC6 over FC5.
    * 14.10.xC8 is due out soon I think.

Comments are closed.