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Insider

IIUG Insider (Issue #154)
April 2013

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Highlights: Informix is playing a Critical Role in IBM Research

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.

Contents:

 
Editorial Back to top

The phrase "Informix 12.1 - It's simply powerful" is catching. We always knew it. Yet it is nice when you hear it from Bob Picciano, the new General Manager of the Information Management Software Division.

All over the IIUG Informix conference, not only in the Informix 12.1 feature sessions, you could sense the excitement. The conference attendance was great but I wish that you were all there.

IBM Informix marketing is continuing in creating the buzz around the Informix new release.

If you haven't seen the IBM Informix 12.1 : Simply Powerful! Video go ahead.

Gary Ben-Israel
IIUG Insider Editor

Highlights Back to top
Informix is playing a Critical Role in IBM Research

This is the title of a fascinating session at the 2013 IIUG Informix conference. The session, which unfortunately is not available for download, was about cutting edge technologies developed at the IBM Research labs in Watson NY and in China. Analyzing electrical meter readings to calculate storm damages, analyzing sensor data on bridges to trace overloaded trucks to prevent bridge damage and other breathtaking projects were presented.

It is encouraging that IBM industry focused research teams are using Informix as their database of choice. These projects strengthen Informix positioning as a technology leader. But there is more to it than that. The advanced analytics developed in these projects are incorporated into Informix and will be part of future releases.

I'm hoping to bring you more content about projects at the IBM Research Labs in the future.

Gary Ben-Israel

IIUG Presidential Suite Back to top
Note to the Informix community from Stuart Litel, IIUG President

I wanted to write a quick note to the Informix community, as we are about to "go to press" or send out the Monthly IIUG newsletter, thanking the wonderful IIUG Conference team for putting on a great 2013 Conference this past month in San Diego. The team of John Fahey, Andrew Ford, Sam Gentsch, Rhonda Hackenburg, Cindy Lichtenauer, David Link, Bruce Simms and Matt Elders are definitely deserving of much much more than a "pat" on the back, or as the person who talked me into doing this conference used to tell me, "Atta-Boy"(and girl). The 2013 Conference was a nice success from all fronts and I wanted to publically acknowledge and THANK the team. Special "Thank You" also goes to a few IBMers: Anita McKeithen, Pradeep Kutty, Shawn Moe, Jerry Keesee, Bernie Spang, Bob Picciano, Patty Ivansheck, Sue Weaver, Steve Miller, Sally Hartnell and Louis T Cherian. Thank you all for making this a great success.

Speaking of the conference, MANY of the 2013 IIUG Sessions are now available in the IIUG member area. However, we still have a lot of speakers who did not get their presentations to us so we can post them. Please speakers, send them to conference@iiug.org or david@iiug.org so we can post them and close this chapter of the 2013 IIUG Conference.

Now attention turns to the 2014 Conference. We are looking "EAST" as in East Coast of the USA with a few cities in mind but we have only just begun to look. Our quest will hopefully take us to a "major airport hub city" in the time zone starting either April 27 or May 4, 2014. Stay tune for more information.

Also, I would like to let all the members know of two new items on the IIUG web site. First, at the top of the main page, IIUG.ORG, is a letter to the community from the new General Manager of Information Management of IBM (who also was our keynote speaker at this year's conference): Bob Picciano. Second, in the member area is the latest release of Informix 12.1 Development Edition for more than six different platforms as well as the new OAT (Have you heard about OAT on your PDA??) - so check these out.

Stay tuned for the official 2014 IIUG Conference announcement which should come late this summer with the city and exact dates. Until then, see you all next year!

Open letter to the Informix Community from Bob Picciano, GM IBM Information Management

Office of the General Manager
Information Management Software
Route 100
Somers, NY 10589

May 2, 2013

Dear Informix Community,

As the new General Manager of IBM Information Management, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to meet with the Informix community at the recent 2013 International Informix User Group conference. I am truly excited to be back on the Information Management team at this critical point in our industry. IBM is committed to delivering software and systems that help our clients achieve rapid value to better serve their business, and increase operational efficiency to lower costs. An example of this commitment is Informix® 12, which I had the pleasure of introducing to the conference attendees.

The world's rapidly growing data — often called Big Data - is the natural resource that is fueling our smarter planet. Data professionals like you are delivering solutions that are powering and transforming businesses, and in many cases, transforming the world.

Informix, with its innovative Flexible Grid clustering, in-memory Warehouse Accelerator, and new TimeSeries Acceleration offers an unique set of capabilities for this era of big data. Further, it is built on a robust and reliable foundation designed for high performance transaction processing with minimal administration. These attributes make Informix software ideal for companies with few technical resources, or for application and solution providers who are looking to embed database management capabilities.

We understand that your business relies on Informix solutions. IBM continues to support and grow the worldwide ecosystem of Informix application providers, solution providers and resellers. In addition, Informix 12 is complemented by many other software offerings from IBM, including IBM Optim and Guardium information governance and IBM CognosŪ and SPSS business analytics software.

I am committed to providing an innovative portfolio that will contribute to the success of your organizations. I personally thank you for the support and passion that continues to be a critical part of this success.

For more information and details on Informix software please visit http://www.ibm.com/informix.

Sincerely,

Bob Picciano
General Manager, Information Management
IBM Software Group

Conference corner Back to top
The 2013 IIUG Conference is officially in the books

The IIUG Board and Conference Planning Committee would like to thank our presenters, sponsors, the San Diego Marriott Mission Valley staff, IBM, the San Diego weather and especially our conference attendees for making this another great conference! I saw many familiar faces at this year's conference but it was especially nice to see so many new faces.

The conference opened Monday morning with Bob Picciano, the new General Manager of the Information Management Software Division, as he shared his perspective on the growing importance of data management in this new era of computing. We heard from Jerry Keesee, World Wide Director, Informix Software IBM Data Management, on Wednesday morning. Jerry provided his view of Informix from the Director's chair. We also brought back the popular Meet the Experts session allowing attendees to get answers to questions concerning all things Informix.

Over 80 technical and user sessions were offered this year, including several hands-on labs. We also had a full day of tutorials. Many of the sessions and even the tutorials focused on new features and enhancements of the recently released Informix 12.10. These sessions were offered by many Informix Users, IBM Technicians and Developers and even IBM management.

Many attendees took advantage of the free IBM Certification that was available throughout the week. Attendees had opportunities to share success stories with IBM at the Client Reference Lounge and participate in Usability Sandbox to help influence the future of Informix.

This year we experimented with a new conference format. The tutorials were held on Thursday and were included as part of the Conference experience for all paid attendees.

The IIUG Board and Conference Planning Committee have already started planning the 2014 Conference. We are looking turning our sights to the USA east coast. Potential start dates for the conference are April 27 or May 4. It is just a little too early to know when or where so stay tuned for future updates. We should be ready to make the announcement in a few months.

We want to thank the 2013 Conference attendees, presenters, sponsors and IBM staff who took the time to complete your conference evaluations! Remember this is your conference and we value your input. We will consider your comments (likes and dislikes) as we continue planning for the 2014 IIUG Conference.

I hope you all enjoyed this Conference as much as I did and I look forward to seeing everyone in 2014. Have a great summer.

Rhonda Hackenburg
IIUG Board and Conference Planning Committee

Informix News Back to top
Webcast

Using IBM's Deep Embed Strategy to Increase Your Profits
This web cast is for every IBM Business Partner with a solution that would benefit from Information Management software integrated into their solution. Learn how to increase profits when IBM Information Management software is shipped with your solution every time.

Watch the recording today.

IBM Data Magazine

Informix 12.1: A Paradigm Shift in Thinking about Database Queries
Read about the game-changing new grid queries feature in Informix 12.1. In grid queries, you don't have to know the database or the server where the data resides. The tables, databases, and servers just have to be defined as part of the same grid.

Read the complete article.

The Wall Street Journal

Correlsense SharePath 3.0 Enterprise APM Solution Adopts Big Data Capabilities, Bringing Massive Scalability to Managing Complex Interconnected Applications

Read the article.

Developer corner Back to top
New in DeveloperWorks
25-Apr-2013
IBM Informix version 12.10.xC1 comes with striking new features and enhancements in existing features--as well as a few features or products that were removed. Understanding the new, enhanced, and discontinued features is crucial for better planning and determining which functions should be disabled or enabled during the upgrade process. This minimizes the impact of conversion/reversion and results in a smooth upgrade to Informix 12.10. This article provides all the necessary information to help database administrators make an informed decision on setting the 12.10 features during conversion and then changing the settings, if needed, after the upgrade. The article also covers the required steps in case a reversion is needed.
8-Apr-2013
Get an introduction to the various editions of IBM Informix, and compare features, benefits, and licensing considerations in a side-by-side table. Regardless of which edition you choose, Informix brings you legendary ease-of-use, reliability, stability, and access to extensibility features.
Also available in: Chinese Russian Portuguese
18 Apr 2013
The IBM OpenAdmin Tool (OAT) for Informix is a web application for administering and analyzing the performance of IBM Informix database servers. You can now use OAT to administer Informix Warehouse Accelerator. Informix Warehouse Accelerator processes warehouse queries more quickly than the Informix database server does. With OAT, you can create data marts based on workload analysis, which is a process that analyzes the query workload in a data warehouse. You can use OAT to schedule loads to refresh the data in the data marts. You can also use OAT to create and drop accelerators and enable and disable data marts. In this article, learn how to create data marts using OAT.
04 Apr 2013
Have you ever wanted to monitor your IBM Informix database servers on the go from your mobile device? This article introduces the IBM Mobile OpenAdmin Tool for Informix (OAT) application. It explains how you can use this new app to check the status and performance of one or more Informix database server instances quickly and easily from the palm of your hand. It describes how to set up Mobile OAT and how to connect it to your regular OpenAdmin Tool for Informix installation. This article also outlines some recommended security best practices when using Mobile OAT.

For more information go to DeveloperWorks - Informix.

Support corner Back to top

New Storage Manager

Informix introduced the PSM (Primary Storage Manager); a new backup storage manager in version 12.10 that replaced the previous ISM (Informix Storage Manager). The PSM manages storage devices used for backup and restore requests that are issued by Onbar. This storage manager supports both serial and parallel processing for backup and restore requests. PSM is easier to set up and use, even in embedded environments. You just need to perform four simple steps to configure PSM and take an Onbar backup:

  1. Decide where you will create the PSM catalog. The default location is $INFORMIXDIR/etc/psm.
  2. Add devices for DBSPOOL and LOGPOOL
    • onpsm -D add /backups/psm_spaces -g DBSPOOL -p HIGH -t FILE
    • onpsm -D add /backups/psm_logs -g LOGPOOL -p HIGH -t FILE
  3. Onconfig settings - you can keep the default values
    • Set BAR_BSALIB_PATH to full path to libbsapsm.so
    • Set PSM_CATALOG_PATH to full path to PSM catalog directory
    • Set PSM_DBS_POOL  DBSPOOL
    • Set PSM_LOG_POOL  LOGPOOL
  4. Take an onbar backup

You use the Informix onpsm utility to manage storage for Onbar backup and restore operations, including parallel backups that use file devices (disks).

The onsmsync utility provides new commands that you can use to export backups to, and import them from, Informix PSM external device pools.

- Sanjit Chakraborty

Informix corner Back to top
The IBM Informix team needs your input!

Help shape the future plans for product and information development by taking a few minutes to complete this online survey:

IBM Informix Administration Survey

We're looking for input from all roles in the Informix technical and business community. Responses are anonymous, though you have the option to provide your name and contact information if you're willing to be contacted for additional follow-up or to be involved in future usability studies.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact Hai-Nhu Tran at hntran@us.ibm.com.

Hai-Nhu Tran
Manager, Information Development for Informix

Informix 12.1 Roadshows

Make sure to register for one of the no-charge technical events designed to give you insight into IBM Informix 12.1 technology that solves some of the toughest business problems in the world today. Register today!

Informix resources Back to top
IBM Informix home page

http://www.informix.com or directly at: http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/informix/

Informix blogs and wikis

I am trying something new on this section. I will first mention the blogs and wikis that have been updated during the last month. Blogs and wikis that have not been updated for over 6 months will be removed.

Blogs and Wikis that have been updated during the last month

More Blogs and Wikis

 
Forums, groups, videos, and magazines  
Useful links Back to top

http://www.iiug.org/quicklinks.html

Closing and credits Back to top

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 now exceeds 25,000 entries and enjoys the support and commitment of IBM's Data 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.