IIUG Insider (Issue#287) June 2024

Highlights: The 14.10.FC11 Release is Imminent 

 

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

If you are planning to attend the TechXchange conference in Las Vegas we would like to let you know that there will be some Informix sessions.

We encourage you to check out this event even though the IIUG board will not be there.

Gary Ben-Israel
IIUG Insider Editor
IIUG Board of Directors
gary@iiug.org

 

Highlights

The 14.10.FC11 Release is Imminent

The 14.10.FC11 release is imminent and will contain fixes for many customer reported apars. We will publish more in the what’s new section when FC11 GAs but we wanted to call out a few things we are planning to include in the 2.4.1 InformixHQ release included in FC11. 

An important change is that InformixHQ 2.4.1, server and agent both, will support only Java 11 or higher. 

Improvements in ease of use: 

  • Enhancements to Query History 

Query History in InformixHQ, which includes multi statement execution introduced in version 2.4.0, will now be saved to the H2 Database as a batch as per the user’s specifications. This relieves users from manually deleting query history from local storage. 

Query history is also configurable in InformixHQ 2.4.1. New history setting options are added to manage query history and to allow user to set duration for maintaining the query history within the permissible range. 

Users can also set/edit Query History options from My Settings->User Preferences. One of the following options can be set: 

  • Auto delete after 30 days – On selecting Auto delete after 30 days option (30 being the default and is also the maximum allowed limit), user can set the number of days the history should be available. On exceeding the days’ limit set by the user, only outdated queries (batch statements) will be deleted. 
  • Auto delete after 1000 entries – On selecting Auto delete after 1000 entries option, user can set the number of entries that should be available in the query history. On exceeding this limit set by the user, outdated queries (batch statements) will be deleted. Default limit is 1000 entries, maximum allowed query entries is 1000 entries. 

 Note: The Delete scheduler runs every midnight or when the InformixHQ server is restarted. It deletes outdated query histories.  

  • Saving SQL Editor toggles’ configuration

Configuration for toggling Continue on failure, Auto-commit and Run as Batch Mode is now saved to the H2 Database. User need not reset these toggles post a reconnection to the Informix Server as toggle settings will be automatically restored.

We are constantly reviewing and prioritizing the incoming feature requests via the IBM Aha feature request system so please let us know what features will help in administration and/or monitoring of your IBM Informix database here. Vote for your favorites or add new! 

Karen Qualley 
HCL

 

 

 

Conference Corner

IBM TechXchange Conference Las Vegas, NV, USA

Title: IBM TechXchange Conference 2024

Date: October 21-24, 2024

Location: Mandalay Bay – Las Vegas, NV, USA

 

IMPORTANT:  Due to a delay in the release of Informix V15. There will not be sufficient content to provide an Informix track. Therefore, the IIUG Board will not participate.  We will continue to support this event and provide any Informix information regarding this event when it becomes available to us.

Be in the know about the latest tech, certifications, education & AI trends.

Join IBM 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. 

Informix Sessions:

Informix for watsonx – your way into AI – guide, examples and a fantastic success story

Henri Cujass, leole IT
Shripad Sonavnay, IBM

Informix, the database that does so much more! Mike Walker, xDB Systems, Inc
Securing Informix Connections with SSL Thomas Beebe, xDB Systems, Inc

 

For our Informix Community members who use or are interested in Informix as well as other IBM products you can learn more here: IBM TechXchange Conference 2024.

 

Rhonda Hackenburg
IIUG Board

 

 

Informix Corner

Informix Tech Talks on YouTube

Upcoming Informix Tech Talks

Title: Exploring the Informix Sysmaster Database

Date: Thursday, August 15, 2024

Time: 2:00 PM EDT

Speaker: Lester Knutsen

Description:  Lester Knutsen will present his Informix Sysmaster Scripts for monitoring and performance tuning an Informix Database Server from his Advanced Informix Performance Tuning Course. We will cover disk and chunk I/O, Log Turnover, Performance Ratios, Table and Index I/O, and identifying the slowest SQL statements.

Lester Knutsen is an IBM Informix Lifetime Champion with over 40 years of Informix experience.

 

Register Here

 

Last Informix Tech Talks Replay

Replay of the Last Informix Tech Talks:  Migrating Databases Under the Worst Conditions – with Fail-back! – Art Kagel – May 2024

 

 

Informix Tech Talks YouTube Channel

Our YouTube Channel now has:

  • 501 subscribers (3 new subscribers)

  • 106 videos (no new videos)

  • 18,038 views (430 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

Add option to set explain on to see what the optimizer is doing. 

Add DB2 ALTER TABLE VOLIATE feature. 

Add DB2 OPTIMIZATION LEVEL to allow more time to be spent in the optimizer for complex queries. 

Set explain on to show time spent on query optimixation. 

Get Informix SQLTRACE working with DRDA 

archecker provide audit summary of tablenames and row count number foreach database/table in a db archive. 

Support LIMIT clause in Common Table Expressions 

Multi-Vector Functionality 

 

 

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
IUG Board

 

 

IBM Informix Forum Corner

Join and visit the IBM Informix community forum

Recent Posts

 Informix TechTalk: Exploring the Informix Sysmaster Database 

 webcast of V15 presentation replay? 

 Informix install and configuration on Google – GCE 

 ALTER TABLE Error #106: non-exclusive access 

 Informix.Net.Core.dll 64bit 

 Duplicate DBSERVERALIAS 

 C-UDR reusage of prepared statement 

 C++ SDK Thread Safe Connection 

 

Gary Ben-Israel
IIUG Board

 

 

Informix Resources

IIUG Website

Not a member, become an IIUG member and keep updated on all things Informix. It’s free.

 

IBM Informix Community

Not a member, join the IBM Informix community and connect with other Informix data experts.

 

IBM Informix RFE

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 LinkedIn X (Twitter) Facebook

 

Forums, Groups, Videos, and Magazines

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