Highlights: Enabling real-time insights and AI through IBM Informix and watsonx
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
We are already into Q2 2024, and things are still going slow.
We still have no final release date for Informix 15. We would like to see more.
HCL keeps postponing the release of Informix V15. And IBM is doing very little both for Informix and the IIUG. All we can do is hope for better days.
Gary Ben-Israel
IIUG Insider Editor
IIUG Board of Directors
gary@iiug.org
Highlights
Enabling real-time insights and AI through IBM Informix and watsonx
A high-performance embeddable database, IBM Informix is central to your ability to efficiently store and process data in enabling advanced analytics and real-time reporting of insights. Customers can now unlock additional value from their Informix data through integration with watsonx. Watsonx facilitates rapid, governed access to data residing in IBM Informix, seamlessly integrating it with other hybrid cloud data sources. This enables the creation of real-time dashboards and insights reporting, as well as the processing of new analytics use cases and AI models.
Conference Corner
Leolo IT Mastermind Conference: June 3-5, 2024, Austria
IBM TechXchange Conference Las Vegas, NV, USA
Title: IBM TechXchange Conference 2024
Date: October 21-24, 2024
Location: Mandalay Bay – Las Vegas, NV, USA
Be in the know about the latest tech, certifications, education & AI trends.
Join us to gain industry-leading skills, get a first look at the latest product roadmaps, engage in hands-on experiences, earn industry-leading credentials, network with thousands of peers, and hear from the best and brightest minds working in tech today. Discover what’s to come in your area of focus.
IMPORTANT: IBM does not have a release date for Informix V15. Because of this, there will not be sufficient Informix content for the IIUG to present an Informix track at this event. Therefore, the IIUG has decided to not participate in IBM TechXchange Conference 2024. We will continue to support this event and provide any Informix information regarding this event when it becomes available to us.
For our Informix Community members who use or are interested in other IBM products you can learn more here: IBM TechXchange Conference 2024.
Informix Corner
IBM Informix V.14.10.FC11 Release
V.14.10.FC11 is scheduled for release mid-June. It will be a cumulative fix pack release incorporating all special builds for all customers. It will also deliver on a promise made for the past year or two — Java will be completely removed from the engine.
Carlton Doe
IBM
IBM’s Quick Survey – Results
Thank you to everyone who participated in the recent O/S survey. It was extremely helpful to understand not only what you’re using today but where you think your business will be moving to in the future.
I’d like to share the result with you.
There were approximately 218 responses. Regarding current O/S deployments:
| What Operating System(s) are you currently deployed on? | ||
| Choices | Responses | |
| Linux x86 | 61.93% | 135 |
| AIX-Power | 12.39% | 27 |
| Other (please specify) | 7.34% | 16 |
| Solaris | 6.42% | 14 |
| HPUX | 5.96% | 13 |
| Windows | 5.05% | 11 |
| AIX – Intel | 0.92% | 2 |
| IBM Z Linux | 0.00% | 0 |
| Answered | 218 | |
| Skipped | 0 | |
For those who provided answers to which Linux distribution you’re using:
| Current Linux – By Count | |
| Rhel | 95 |
| Ubuntu | 28 |
| SUSE / SLEX | 12 |
| CentO/S | 10 |
| Rocky | 6 |
| Alma | 2 |
| Fedora | 2 |
| Oracle Linux | 2 |
| Amazon | 1 |
| Debian | 1 |
| IBM ??? | 1 |
| Slackware | 1 |
Looking forward, you responded saying these were your targeted O/Ss:
| What Operating System(s) are you planning for for future deployments? | ||
| Choices | Responses | |
| Linus x86 | 79.07% | 170 |
| AUX – Power | 15.81% | 34 |
| Windows | 14.42% | 31 |
| Other (Please specify) | 7.44% | 16 |
| Solaris | 5.58% | 12 |
| HPUX | 3.72% | 8 |
| AIX – Intel | 3.72% | 8 |
| IBM Z Linux | 0.93% | 2 |
| Answered | 215 | |
| Skipped | 3 | |
For those listing a Linux distribution:
| Future Linux – By Count | |
| Rhel | 107 |
| Ubuntu | 32 |
| Rocky | 17 |
| CentO/S | 9 |
| Alma | 6 |
| Debian | 6 |
| Amazon | 3 |
| SUSE / SLES | 3 |
| Undecided | 3 |
| Oracle Linux | 2 |
| Fedora | 1 |
| Mint/ Ubunto | 1 |
| Google Cloud | 1 |
| Multiple | 1 |
| Slackware | 1 |
Again, thank you for helping us understand where we need to focus future releases.
Carlton Doe
IBM
Informix Tech Talks on YouTube
Upcoming Informix Tech Talks
Title: Migrating Databases Under the Worst Conditions – with Fail-back!
Date: Thursday, May 16, 2024
Time: 2:00 pm EDT
Speaker: Art Kagel, ASK Database Management
Agenda: ••Challenge
Migrate a large database to the cloud over slow and unreliable WAN connections.
Maintain fail-back strategy:
– Keep the target database in sync with the source until turnover.
– After turnover keep the source database in synch with the target in case of unexpected need to revert!
Last Informix Tech Talks Replay
Replay of the Last Informix Tech Talks:
Informix Tech Talks YouTube Channel
Our YouTube Channel now has:
-
491 subscribers (11 new subscribers)
-
105 videos (1 new video)
-
17,131 views (625 additional views)
Informix Tech Talks YouTube Channel Videos
Past Informix Tech Talks Replays
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 Art Kagel or Rhonda Hackenburg for additional information.
Rhonda Hackenburg
IIUG Board
Schedule Your Informix 14.10 Exam Today
The Informix 14.10 Badge exam is still available!
The exam will be administered online. You are required to complete the exam with a proctor from our approved list, or nominate one of your own, to be approved by IBM or the IIUG Board. You will be required to have a live webcam running as you complete the exam.
For those not familiar with the term Proctor: Proctor is frequently used to describe someone who oversees an exam. In today’s testing environment, a proctor will typically verify a student’s identity by checking a photo ID and ensure academic integrity guidelines are followed during the exam.
Click here to learn more or schedule your exam.
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/
RFE Corner
IBM has an RFE – Request For Enhancements website.
Please visit the RFE site to vote for your favorite enhancements and place new requests. It is friendly and has a nice look and feel.
Recent
Unable to see fully qualified name in a trigger for seme instance
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: 108 (+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: 105 (+0)
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: 93 (+0)
Created: December 24, 2018
Status: Future consideration
Gary Ben-Israel
IIUG Board
IBM Informix Forum Corner
Join and visit the IBM Informix community forum
Recent Posts
Migrating BLOBs to the filesystem
Connect to legacy Informix Server using .NET Data Provider
Gary Ben-Israel
IIUG Board
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.
Technical Articles
https://www.oninitgroup.com/technical-articles/
Over 10 Years of Informix Webcast Replays
Over 30 Years of Informix Blog Posts
Social Media
| YouTube | X (Twitter) |
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