Highlights: Elections for the 2025-2026 IIUG Board of Directors
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
The current IIUG board that started its term on January 1, 2023 will, end its term on December 31, 2024. These were troubled years for the IIUG board. Two board members left in midterm.
IBM has stopped supporting the IIUG and our relationship with IBM management still exists but is deteriorating. On the other hand, we are exploring a new relationship with HCL and are hoping for a better connection with Informix development and support.
Gary Ben-Israel
IIUG Insider Editor
IIUG Board of Directors
gary@iiug.org
Highlights
Elections for the 2204-2026 IIUG Board of Directors
Nominations closed midnight EST on November 4th.
The IIUG board will review the nominations for approval.
If there are more nominees than seats on the board, we will commence the elections with the following timetable:
- Election Announced on November 18th
- Election starts on December 2nd
- Election ends on December 16th
- Election results will be officially declared on December 26th
If the number of nominees is less than or equal to the number of seats, we will present the new IIUG board on November 18th and in the November Insider.
John Fahey
IIUG Election Commissioner
jjfahey@gmail.com
Conference Corner
IBM TechXchange Conference 2024 – Las Vegas, NV, USA
IBM TechXchange 2024 in Las Vegas has come and gone. It was 4 days of technical content for the IBM community.
The IIUG had a couple of representatives that attended to support the community and to find out more about what IBM was focused on.
There were a handful of Informix specific talks that were attended by a small but interested crowd of both Informix experts as well as some new, and potential new, customers.
The conference content was heavily focused towards IBMs AI initiatives. There is more integration coming out with Informix and watsonx so it may be relevant to Informix customers.
Along with AI, there was a strong presence of IBMs commitment to Open Source solutions. As those are becoming more and more the backbone of technical environments it is really good to see the backing IBM has for
a variety of project and the resources they are focusing on promoting development of open source projects.
However, the conference was aimed more for people actively using AI for specific cases. While there was a focus on open source solutions and useful technology, there was not enough relational database content this year to make it worth the full IIUG board representation. However, we are hopeful in the future as they grow that the IBM technical conferences will have more content for IIUG members.
We are excited to see the direction they may be going in for conferences in 2025. The next TechXchange conference is announced for Oct 6-9th 2025 in Orlando FL, USA,
Thomas Beebe
IIUG Board
Informix Corner
IBM Informix 15 Webcast
Title: Pushing the boundaries of data scalability: An overview of Informix 15
Date: Tuesday, December 3, 2024
Time: 9:00 AM EST
Speaker: Carlton Doe
Description: Join us as Carlton Doe, Informix Technical Product Manager, showcases how Informix 15 revolutionizes database performance and scalability, enabling near infinite data storage scalability and management. Learn about the enhanced Informix HQ monitoring tool and support for the latest libraries and non-English language sets, simplifying global application deployment and complex data management.
Agenda:
- Introduction
- Informix 15 Enhancements
- Database performance and scalability
- Enhanced Informix HQ Monitoring Tool
- Support for Latest Libraries and Non-English Language Sets
- Q&A
Click here for more info and to register.
IBM
Announcement – 14.10.xC11W1 is available for download!
This release is targeted to delivering the following APAR fixes to you and the recommendation is always to upgrade to this latest release. (The AIX OS platform is pending at the time of this writing but should be available shortly).
A few of the key updates in this release are:
1) Resolves APAR IT47074 (server) and APAR IT46888 (csdk) both with the following error description:
a. The format of SSL keystores has changed starting with IBM GSKit 8.0.55.28 and vulnerable ciphers have been removed. This change leaves TLS 1.1 without any supported ciphers.
When attempting to connect to older servers (i.e. using older versions of IBM GSKit), the following error is thrown:
28014: Secure Sockets Layer error: cannot initialize GSKit secure socket/GSK_ERROR_BAD_PEER (GSKit:415)
Likewise, connecting from an older server to a server running IBM GSKit 8.0.55.31 or later will produce the same results.
2) Resolves APAR IT46542 that has the following error description:
a. SPL fails with error -103/-346 after upgrading to 14.10.FC11
3) Resolves the need for the workaround required when installing IBM Informix version 14.10.FC9, FC10, and/or FC11 on Red Hat Linux 9, documented on the IBM Informix Server Systems Requirement page here
4) InformixHQ 3.0 is included. This release has multiple fixes and features included in it and will be described in more detail over the next few weeks.
HCL
Informix Tech Talks on YouTube
Upcoming Informix Tech Talks
Upcoming Tech Talks
Title: Washington Area Informix Users Group (WAIUG) Meeting
Date: Thursday, November 21, 2024
Time: 9:30 AM – 13:00 PM EST
Speaker: Various
Description: Join us for latest information regarding Informix 15 and other Informix topics.
Confirmed speaker is Carlton Doe, who will share what he can regarding the new Informix 15.0 version.
We are still finalizing the agenda and speakers. The WAIUG and IIUG websites will be updated once the agenda is finalized.
NOTE: You do not have to be a WAIUG member to attend!
Rhonda Hackenburg
IIUG Board
Last Informix Tech Talks Replay
Replay of the Last Informix Tech Talks: New Informix New Connector that lets you seamlessly connect to IBM Informix IBM Watsonx – Jan Musil – September 2024
Informix Tech Talks YouTube Channel
Our YouTube Channel now has:
-
519 subscribers (6 new subscribers)
-
108 videos (0 new videos)
-
19,867 views (407 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
Have a Event alarm ID for allocating an new virtual shared memory segment
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
Rhonda Hackenburg
IUG Board
IBM Informix Forum Corner
Join and visit the IBM Informix community forum
Recent Posts
Issues with installing CSDK in Docker container to deploy in GCP
Memory block header in pool ‘rsam’ corruption
Gary Ben-Isreal
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
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