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IIUG Alert (Issue #7)
September 21, 2001

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Welcome to the IIUG Alert! The IIUG Alert contains time-sensitive material for the IBM Informix community. Please provide feedback via e-mail to ug@iiug.org.

IBM Informix Conference - Register Now!

2001 IBM Informix Conference
October 21-25, 2001
www.thenextstep.net

Highlights of the IBM Informix Conference

Over 75 breakout sessions!
Free certification testing for attendees, along with exam preparation and study sessions!
Tutorial Classes!
IBM Informix Portfolio Future Directions information!

Register to attend the IIC before October 1, 2001, and your name will be entered into a drawing for the following prizes:

One of 15 HP Digital Cameras - a $300 value.

One of 2 pairs of tickets to the Tuesday 10/23 7:30pm showing of "O" (Cirque du Soleil) at the Bellagio - also valued at $300.

Cirque du Soleil's first venture into aquatic theater has been seen by more than 2 million spectators and has earned the acclaim of journalists from around the world. The Chicago Tribune calls it, "as spectacular and inventive a live show as you're likely to find anywhere in the world right now." The Las Vegas Review-Journal recently honored "O" as the best production show for the second year in a row.

*Attendees who are already registered have been automatically entered into this contest. All registered conference attendees are eligible, with the exception of IBM employees.

Winners will be announced during the Tuesday, October 23 General Session.

IIUG Board Elections - Closed September 15th, 2001

The IIUG Board of Directors Election officially closed at midnight, U.S. Eastern time, September 15, 2001. Rob Vorbroker, an outgoing BoD Member And Chairperson of the Elections Process, is quickly working to certify the vote. The new IIUG Board of Directors will be introduced to the membership at the IIUG Annual General Meeting, to be held at the IBM Informix Conference in October, 2001. Thanks to everyone who took the time to vote for this year’s Board of Directors.

Announcing the IUGGY Award Nominations - Fred Hubbard

As mentioned in our August IIUG e-Newsletter, the IIUG Board has created the IUGGY, an award that recognizes individuals who have long contributed, beyond the call of duty, to the success of the Informix user community. Three such individuals will be presented with IUGGYs at the upcoming IIUG Annual General Meeting, to take place during the 2001 IBM Informix Conference (IIC), Oct. 21-25, 2001.

The following people are among the first IUGGY nominees, and we’d like to thank all of them for their tireless contributions.

Carlton Doe: Co-founder and former president of IIUG and Informix author extraordinaire, Carlton is now with IBM Data Management.
Walt Hultgren: Co-founder and former president of IIUG, Walt is currently the key overseer of the IIUG Software Repository.
Art Kagel: Art is one of the most constant contributors to CDI, all on his own time and over nights and weekends.
Lester Knutsen: Lester co-founded both the IIUG and the Washington, D.C. Users Group. The latter is arguably the largest and most successful local Informix users group in the world.
Jonathan Leffler: Jonathan is a multifaceted expert in many Informix products and a consistent and reliable technical adviser to the IIUG and the Informix community at large, via CDI.
Jack Parker: A technically distinguished member of the Informix community, Jack is also a tireless contributor on CDI.
Mark Scranton: Mark is a principal technical trainer and consultant for Informix. Mark has presented many tutorials and track sessions at the annual Informix conferences.
Christine Shannon: During her tenure at Informix Software, Christine worked tirelessly, opening doors for IIUG and obtaining support for local user groups worldwide.

If you have anecdotes that depict how vital these heroes of the Informix community have been to us, please send them to me FredH@IIUG.org) prior to Oct. 10th.

New Advisory Council - Malcolm Weallans

During this time of transition, the IIUG Board needs to act more quickly than ever. When questions about the IBM deal and other important issues come up we need to quickly poll a representative sample of our membership, tabulate the results, and communicate that information to IBM Informix representatives. To this end, we have introduced the Advisory Council. This body will sit alongside IUGLC as advisors to the Board of Directors, ready to quickly respond to important questions as they arise. Please volunteer to join the Advisory Council. It won’t take much time, but it will contribute greatly to our effectiveness. For more information, go to http://www.iiug.org/advcoun. To join the Advisory Council please email malcolm@iiug.org.

IIC: Submit ATE & IRM questions via www.IIUG.org

The upcoming IIC will include Ask the Expert (ATE) sessions to answer questions about current products and features, and Interactive Roadmap (IRM) sessions to discuss future product releases and enhancements. If you’d like to submit questions in advance to one or both of these sessions, please click on "Submit Your Questions" and enter your questions. (A "Submit Your Questions" link is also located on the www.iiug.org home page.) To ease our task of routing the questions to the appropriate forum please type ATE or IRM at the beginning of each question.

IBM/INFORMIX Script To Survey & Improve DB Performance

IIUG is pleased to co-sponsor a survey of IBM IDS 7.x 9.x and IBM XPS 8.x databases in production.

The survey will highlight some key information:

What is the average cpu to disk ratio? (defines disk and cpu needs)
What is the average free space to used space ratio? (defines disk needs)
What are the most commonly tuned parameters in the onconfig?
What fragmentation strategies are used?

Survey results will indicate whether individual participants have too much or too little hardware, and if their DBA's are working too hard or too inefficiently. (Based on a prior internal survey, a large financial company in Boston significantly changed their multi-million dollar hardware purchase, and also changed the architecture of how they deployed the cpu and disk they bought.) Marty Lurie, IBM's resident guru for large databases, will present highlights of these results at the upcoming IBM Informix Conference (www.TheNextStep.net), where randomly selected participants will receive recognition during the session. All participants will receive study results via e-mail. Individual results will be kept confidential.

For more information and to download the script, please visit http://www.iiug.org/util/survey.ksh. Survey results should be submitted directly to Martin Lurie lurie@informix.com.

TECHINFO CENTER - PRODUCT UPDATE REQUESTS GO ONLINE -- Fred Hubbard

A new feature was recently announced within TechInfo Center. Customers with active Assurance or OpenLine maintenance agreements now have the ability to conveniently order product updates online. Customers need only enter their ship to, bill to, and product request. An order can be placed with or without a part number. A convenient link to the Product Availability Query enables customers to check the order ability of products on their platform prior to placing their order. Delivery options are either Electronic Delivery or CD-ROM, DAT and 8MM tape by ground delivery. Orders are fulfilled approximately 5 - 7 business days from the time of order to receipt depending on method of delivery.

Customers access the Product Update Form from the Product Support link on the TechInfo Center left navigation bar: http://www.informix.com/informix/registration/techinfo/techinfo.htm.

You may also want to sign up for email notification to remain current of new information and features within TechInfo Center.

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Closing and Credits

The International Informix Users Group (IIUG) is an international Organization designed to enhance communications between Informix and its worldwide user community. The IIUG now has over 13,000 members and enjoys major support from IBM Data Management division. We also help local user groups get started and promoted.

Sources: IIUG Board of Directors
Editor: Rob Vorbroker and Martha Schraer, IIUG Board of Directors

For comments, please e-mail to ug@iiug.org

IIUG Alert (Issue #7) September 21, 2001

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