Highlights: A Clarification on Licensing of H/A Cluster Secondaries
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.
Table of Contents
Editorial
During the pandemic we had virtual board meetings. This April we had our second in-person meeting.
There are good reasons for an in-person meeting. The main two are: getting to know each other better helps build a better team spirit leading to better teamwork and meeting informally after the meeting hours helps clarifying things and brings up topics that where not on the agenda.
Stay tuned.
Gary Ben-Israel
IIUG Insider Editor
IIUG Board of Directors
gary@iiug.org
Highlights
A Clarification on Licensing of H/A Cluster Secondaries
The H/A cluster technology has been in Informix since the early 1990’s. Read access to the HDR secondary (the first secondary type) followed a year or two later and was always available if customers wanted to use it for load balancing workloads – R/W on the primary and reports on the secondary.
In Informix v.11 there was a significant expansion of the cluster technology. New secondary types were added – the SD (Shared Disk) Secondary (SDS), the RS (Remote Standalone) Secondary (RSS) and the Continuous Log Restore (CLR). These nodes inherited the read capacity from the very beginning. Again, additional functionality was added including full read/write throughout the cluster (active/ active) as well as delayed apply of transactions on RS secondaries.
In Informix v.14 more improvements were made including a significant performance and throughput boost as well as the ability to create a backup on a RS secondary. Work is not finished though, look for additional enhancements in Informix vNext when it comes out.
Licensing for the H/A cluster has not changed since the beginning. More on this in a moment. There has been some confusion of late around licensing, mostly due to IBM’s use of Hot, Warm, Cold to describe secondary licensing, which doesn’t apply to Informix. In brief, the Hot definition said the node was able to process workloads while the Warm definition said the node was in failover-only “mode.” Unfortunately, this language doesn’t apply to Informix because all secondary types can support workloads therefore all would be classified hot.
This article is to clarify how and when H/A cluster secondaries require licenses. Look for language like this to be added to the Informix license agreement in the very near future.
“For H/A cluster secondaries, if the secondary node is only functioning as a backup/failover secondary, it can be deployed without an additional IBM Informix license charge. However, if any H/A cluster secondary node is used for Data Manipulation Language operations (read, write, update, or delete), the secondary node must be fully licensed using the same license metric as the primary. Shared Disk Secondary (SDS) environments always require a license using the same license metric as the primary server. Backup operations performed on a secondary is NOT a licensable activity.”
The concept is simple, if you’re using a H/A cluster secondary for work, you must license it, otherwise no license is required. We want you to use the technology to protect your environments plus give you additional (licensable) functionality if you want it. Backup operations on a secondary do not require a license.
Notice there are three caveats within this language. First, all SD secondary nodes must be licensed since they are sharing the primary’s workspace. Second, when licensing a secondary, you must use the same license metric as the primary e.g., PVU, VPC, etc. Third, you are NOT required to have the same quantity of the license metric on the secondary as on the primary – whether you’re licensing the secondary or not. There are several reasons for this. You may have a powerful primary for your OLTP operations, but the report workload separated to a secondary doesn’t require as much power, you can have a “smaller” RSS, for example, to handle that work.
Some customers have an HDR secondary in “failover mode” but don’t have the funds to completely duplicate the primary hardware. They can deploy a “smaller” HDR node knowing that in a failover condition, they will only process the most critical workloads on this smaller server until they can get the primary back online.
I hope this helps clarify the licensing requirements for H/A cluster secondaries. As always, if you have questions contact me or others on the IBM sales teams.
Carlton Doe
Informix Corner
Informix Tech Talks on YouTube
Upcoming Informix Tech Talks
Title: Discover What’s New with IBM Informix 14.10
Speaker: Shripad Sonavnay and Karen Qualley
Date/Time: Thursday, May 25 2023, 2:00 PM EDT
Description: Includes fixpack details and future enhancements.
Register for Discover What’s New with IBM Informix 14.10
Last Informix Tech Talks Replay
Replay of the Last Informix Tech Talks: April 6, 2023: Informix SQL Performance Tuning Tips – Jeff Filippi
Past Informix Tech Talks Replays
All Informix Tech Talks replays are available at: https://www.iiug.org/en/category/techtalks/
And on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/c/InformixTechTalksbytheIIUG
Rhonda Hackenburg
Informix Tech Talks YouTube Channel
We now have 373 subscribers to our YouTube channel.
We have 97 videos on YouTube on our Channel.
Our Channel has received over 10,000 views so far!
Informix Tech Talks YouTube Channel Videos
Past Informix Tech Talks Replays
Gary Ben-Israel
In Search of Tech Talks Speakers
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 Bruce Simms or Rhonda Hackenburg for additional information.
Rhonda Hackenburg
IIUG Board
leolo Informix MasterMind Conference 23
UPDATE: Informix MasterMind Agenda is published and the call for speakers is still open.
The conference is set to take place on June 5-6, 2023, at the Interalpen Hotel Tyrol in Austria. The event is expected to feature a range of topics related to the future of data security, AI, and predictive analytics, among others.
Attendees will have the opportunity to meet and learn from some of the leading international experts and speakers in these fields. The conference is designed to provide valuable insights into the latest trends and developments in data security, AI, and predictive analytics, as well as to showcase innovative solutions and technologies.
Preregistration is currently open, and interested individuals can contact Leolo IT for more information about the conference, including registration details, the full list of speakers, and the conference agenda. With its focus on cutting-edge technologies and emerging trends, the Leolo IT/Informix Mastermind conference promises to be a must-attend event for anyone interested in the future of data security, AI, and predictive analytics.
Call for speakers is open. Please submit your 40-minute Informix topic. Selected speakers will receive one complementary night at Tyrol Interalpen Hotel!
Rooms are limited, preregister to reserve your room.
You can preregister, submit your presentation request, or learn more at leolo Informix Mastermind Conference 23.
CTO – Senior Consultant – Data Scientist
leolo IT & Media Consulting GmbH
NEW! IBM TechXchange Conference – September 11-14, 2023
Join IBM for their newest technical event, IBM TechXchange! This is a must for users for IBM products and solutions to learn the latest IBM technologies, including hybrid cloud and AI, including product roadmaps.
The event will be held at the MGM Grand Conference Center in Las Vegas from September 11-14, 2023.
The call for speakers is open, submit your sessions today. Submissions include a wide variety of topics including AI, Business Analytics, Data Science, Data Security, Hybrid Cloud, Threat Management, Information Management, and many more.
Start your event one day earlier with a pre-conference Community day. Meet with other professionals to share your knowledge and other interests.
Registration opened May 8, 2023.
Click here to submit your session, register for the event or learn more about IBM’s TechXchange.
Rhonda Hackenburg
Informix Training
Free Informix Tutorials Videos – a step by step approach to using Informix Database Servers are available at https://advancedatatools.com/tech-info/informix-tutorials/
IIUG Board Member Profile
Let’s discover together board member Rhonda Hackenburg.
Q: How do you use Informix in your “real” job (DBA, Consultant, Developer, etc.)?
A: I am the Research and Developer for a very small organization. I work as developer using Informix-4GL for our primary business solution. I also use Informix to prepare statistics for our management team. We have no true DBA on staff, so I dabble in DBA type work when it is needed.
Q: How long have you been using Informix products?
A: I was introduced to Informix in 1987 as an Intern for the Federal government, starting with Informix-SE. During that time, I was tasked to convert an ORACLE application to Informix-4GL which required and upgrade to Informix. This is when I really was introduced to what Informix has to offer. I have changed employers several times since then and have been working with Informix ever since.
Q: What is your role on the IIUG Board?
A: I have a variety of Board duties: I am co-editor of the Insider and publish the Insider to iiug.org. I am responsible for sending out Board emails for the Insider and other announcements. I am on the Conference Planning Committee as well as the Tech Talks Committee and help with finding speakers and organizing events.
Q: Why did you volunteer to be on the board?
A: I started on the IIUG conference planning committee. After a few years planning events, I thought I could join the IIUG Board and help promote Informix in a different way. I wanted to work with the other Board members to help keep Informix relevant in the IBM portfolio of products and share with Informix community. My only wish is for the Informix Community to reach out to the Board with any concerns we can share with IBM. We are here for you!
Q: What do you want to accomplish this year on the Board?
A: I would like to work with this conference team to offer an IIUG World 2023 technical event.
Q: Where are you from?
A: I was born and raised in Pennsylvania, I currently live about an hour south of Pittsburgh, PA.
Q: Best Informix story?
A: There is a national organization of businesses who do the same type of work as my current employer. Several of the businesses have sought us out to ask for our help to provide them with a personalized application to fit their needs and subtle differences. The primary business application for my current employer written in Informix 4GL. Sometimes they are put off by the 4GL “green screen”. However, they have embraced the system once they see the power of the system and that it meets and sometimes exceeds their needs.
Q: Worst Informix nightmare.
A: As I mentioned above, my organization has no true DBA. Need I say more. However, I am not overly concerned, the only time Informix “crashed” was due to a hardware failure and I have worked here for over 25 years.
Q: Can you tell us about your family and hobbies outside of IIUG?
A: My husband and I will be celebrating our 35th anniversary later this year. I have one daughter and two granddaughters. I also enjoy spending time with my two German Shepherds. My husband retired in December of 2021. He has started a small farm and I have been helping with that. So, I guess my new hobby is farming. It is where I spend a lot of my free time! LOL!
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
There were no RFEs submitted since the last Insider.
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: 104 (+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: 99 (+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: 90 (+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
Informix restore failure with “Unable to close the storage space restore
Verify Signature on IDS 14.10 download
1—
Hi Family.
I have not posted for a long time because I no longer had my own Informix environment. (That PC had died.) Now I’m trying to get started creating a new one. Starting up posting again, in my usual concise (ahem) manner:
I’ve downloaded:
– ibm.ids.14.10.FC10.LNX.tar
– ibm.csdk.4.50.FC10.LNX.tar
(Will downloading Aubit soon as well. Thanks, Art.)
(Side note: The bullet setting does not seem to work in this posting page.)
In the first untar of the ids TAR file, I find instructions in README.codesign to verify signatures, as per
https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/nasm/1.1.10?topic=verify-digital-signatures.
The first instruction on that page is to verify the file with a command line like this example:
openssl dgst -sha256 -verify noicodesigners-public-key.pem -signature nasm-common-1.1.10-7.x86_64.rpm.sig nasm-common-1.1.10-7.x86_64.rpm
OK, not the same exact file names for me. I can satisfy some options in my version:
openssl dgst -sha256 -verify informix.pem -signature ibm.ids.14.10.FC10.LNX.tar.sig
Alas, the sample mentions a file with suffix “rpm”: nasm-common-1.1.10-7.x86_64.rpm
No .rpm file has shown up after that first tar -xvf command. And there is no rpm string in the extracted tar file either:
$ tar tvf ibm.ids.14.10.FC10.LNX.tar | grep rpm
(I have created public & private keys for user informix (ssh-addkey) but it seems somehow irrelevant.)
If I run the above openssl command without the rpm parameter it just sits there util I kill it. (I’m running it as user informix)
I also wonder if I can proceed without verifying the “signature” or would I just be asking for trouble down the road if I skip that?
Thanks much for helpful advice.
Jacob Salomon
2—
Hi Jacob,
> If I run the above openssl command without the rpm parameter it just sits
> there util I kill it.
That’s because it is waiting for input. You need to provide the actual file name of the tarball you want to check the signature of (your last argument
is missing–see below).
source: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/informix-servers/14.10?topic=overview-verify-digital-signatures
Informix 14.10.xC9 and above now include digital signatures, so the tar/zip file you download contains:
* Original *.zip or *.tar media file
* Signature file, has same name as the media file with .sig extension
* Informix public key file: informix.pem
To verify signature:
a) extract original tar or zip file that you downloaded
b) Use openssl to verify signatures:
For example:
$ openssl dgst -sha256 -verify informix.pem \
-signature ibm.ids.14.10.FC10.LNX.tar.sig \
ibm.ids.14.10.FC10.LNX.tar
Verified OK
The actual Informix installer is in the tarball within the tarball you downloaded. There is no RPM file for the Informix installer. You have to extract the file ibm.ids.14.10.FC10.LNX.tar and then run ./ids_install.
You are not required to verify the signature but it is best practice to do so to ensure your download is authentic.
> I have created public & private keys for user informix (ssh-addkey)
> but it seems somehow irrelevant.)
This is unnecessary for the signature verification and the Informix install.
Here’s a script you can use to verify the signature.
Save it as /home/informix/bin/checksig and make it executable.
$ chmod 0755 /home/informix/bin/checksig
Add /home/informix/bin to the informix users’ PATH.
Download the Informix tarball.
Make a directory and cd into it.
Extract the downloaded Informix tarball.
While still in that directory run checksig and give it the name of the .sig file alone, or you can give both the .sig and the tarball name, either works. This works the way “gpg –verify” works where you can just give it foo.sig file and it assumes the file you want to check is named “foo”.
Be sure you run this in the directory where you extracted the Informix download tarball as the script assumes informix.pem is in the current directory.
$ checksig ibm.ids.14.10.FC10.LNX.tar.sig
Verified OK
………………..cut here………………..
#!/bin/sh
# /home/informix/bin/checksig 0555 informix informix
#ident “@(#)checksig 1.1 23/02/08 23:01:05 thinkunix.net”
# verify digital signature of Informix 14.10.xC9 and above downloads
# source: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/informix-servers/14.10?topic=overview-ver
ify-digital-signatures
#
# Informix archive (tar or zip file) from IBM contains:
# a) original informix tar or zip file
# b) .sig file
# c) informix.pem file used to verify signature
case “$#” in
1)
SIG=”$1″
ARCHIVE=`basename $SIG .sig`
;;
2)
SIG=”$1″
ARCHIVE=”$2″
;;
*)
echo “$0 verifies a digital signature of an Informix download.”
echo “Download Informix from IBM and extract tar or zip file.”
echo “Next run this script supplying the name of the .sig file,”
echo “and optionally the name of the tar or zip file (matches”
echo “the name of the .sig file without the ‘.sig’ extension).”
echo
echo “Usage: $0 FILE.sig [FILE.tar|FILE.zip]”
exit 1
;;
esac
/usr/bin/openssl dgst -sha256 -verify ./informix.pem \
-signature $SIG $ARCHIVE
………………..cut here………………..
IBM should probably update their documentation (e.g. README.codesign) to give an example for the actual Informix product, not refer to some other unrelated product.
Scot Jenkins
CIS Hardened SUSE Image and Informix 12.10
Gary Ben-Israel
Informix Resources
Not a member, become an IIUG member and keep updated on all things Informix. It’s free.
Not a member, join The IBM Informix community and connect with other Informix data experts.
Informix Requests for Enhancements.
Informix Blogs ans Wikis
Andrés Repossi https://andreserepossi.wixsite.com/hablemosinformix (In Spanish)
Technical Articles
https://www.oninitgroup.com/technical-articles/
https://www.oninitgroup.com/faq-items/cloud-backups-with-informix-14-10/
Over 10 Years of Informix Webcast Replays
Over 30 Years of Informix Blog Posts
Social Media
| YouTube |
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 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
Highlights: IBM Community Update – Changes to the Data & AI Communities
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
2023 has begun. So far, I have heard very little from IBM or HCL.
Maybe they are extending the holiday season. You guys are not sending me content either.
So, most of my work is searching. This month Art came to my rescue.
I’m doing the best I can to providing you content. If you have anything you think is of value to other users, please send it to me.
Gary Ben-Israel
IIUG Insider Editor
IIUG Board of Directors
gary@iiug.org