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Insider

IIUG Insider (Issue #170)
August 2014

Other Issues

Highlights: Comparing IBM Informix and Oracle Database for High Availability and Data Replication

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 IIUG Informix conference is going back west.

The 2015 IIUG Informix conference will begin Sunday April 26 and end Thursday April 30 at the Marriott Mission Valley San Diego, California USA. Those who attended the 2012 or 2013 conference are familiar with this great location. We would like to meet you all so Mark your calendar and stay tuned. We will be announcing the Call for Presentations and will open registration very soon! News about the conference will be published in the IIUG Insider conference corner and the IIUG website.

I am happy to introduce a new corner in the Insider the RFE corner. It will cover the public website created by IBM some time ago to collect requests for new features directly from the users. The Requests For Enhancements (RFE) website is included in developerWorks.

Searching the news for Informix I was unable to find any mention of Informix. Looks like IBM is doing a good job hiding it. So the Informix news corner is not included in this issue of the Insider. There is also nothing new about Informix in developerWorks.

Last but not least, for the past two months Informix support team no longer provides technical content. I'm sorry about it since many of the Insider readers found their technical articles very useful.

Let's hope it is just a slow month not a trend.

Gary Ben-Israel


Highlights Back to top

Comparing IBM Informix and Oracle Database for High Availability and Data Replication

ITG — International Technology Group
Executive Brief
January 2014

International Technology Group (ITG), established in 1983, is an independent research and management consulting firm specializing in information technology (IT) investment strategy, cost/benefit metrics, infrastructure studies, deployment tactics, business alignment and financial analysis.

Conclusions

The capabilities of Informix 12 provide clear-cut value as an alternative to Oracle database and RAC in distributed as well as centralized deployments. They also however have broader implications.

Growth in conventional data volumes and the emerging world of Big Data are making replication an increasingly critical feature of the IT landscape. At the same time, pressures to accelerate collection, interpretation and delivery of information are placing new stress on database and date warehouse infrastructures.

These trends make integrated database and replication architecture — which is unique to Informix — increasingly attractive. Organizations may accelerate data management and movement process while minimizing use of server resources and network bandwidth, reducing administrative complexities, maintaining availability and operating transparently across diverse hardware and software bases.

Organizations with longstanding Oracle commitments may argue that Oracle is their database standard. However, as far as costs are concerned, "sole source" procurements seldom represent a best practice in the IT world. Informix 12 offers an opportunity for great cost-effectiveness.

Costs are not the only issue. Legacy data structures leave organizations ill equipped to deal with the challenges of data growth and sophistications, as well as real-time delivery of information. Even where these challenges can be met with new add-ons and overlays, software stacks will grow increasingly complex and inefficient, and costs will escalate.

Where database infrastructure must meet the challenge of the future, Informix is an obvious candidate.

Read the full article here.


Conference corner Back to top

IBM Information On Demand is now Insight!

Seize This Moment

IBM Information On Demand is now Insight! The name has changed for a reason: It's no longer just about information; it's what you can do with the information. More than ever, organizations are using data for competitive advantage. At Insight you will discover how that data has transformed Business Analytics, Information Management and Enterprise Content Management and explore the latest developments in Cloud, Mobile, Security, Social and Watson.

Registration

Sneak Peek

Use the new session preview tool to explore the Insight curriculum. The curriculum is aligned to three main programs. You can search sessions by program or keywords.

Build your preview agenda

Visit the Insight 2014 page.


Informix corner Back to top

Internet of Things Infographic

IBM and Intel gateway solutions bring real-time intelligence to the Internet of Things. Finally, your business can reliably store, access and analyze data from billions of connected devices on the edge - and answer the toughest questions, faster than ever.

More here

Shaspa Case Study

Shaspa is a leading vendor of next-generation, smart home and commercial building solutions with the Shaspa Service Framework. Shaspa has partnered with IBM to leverage Informix for an end-to-end solution and service delivery platform for a range of market sectors, starting with a residential gateway platform.

More here

Is your business ready for the Internet of Things

An intelligent database for the Internet of Things can provide you with:

  • Speed of thought analytics
  • Embedded database for enterprise-class intelligence and local decision making
  • Rapid application development

More here

Insight 2014: Internet of Things Deep Dive

Sunday, October 26, 2014 from 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM (PDT), Las Vegas, NV

Come to this session to learn how IBM solutions can help put the Internet of Things to work for you by giving you the ability to connect millions of objects and events to unlock information support new systems of interaction with people, mobile devices, sensors, machines and applications conduct business virtually anywhere and anytime, using almost any device bring intelligence to the edge with local analytics act on insights in near-real time and create new services at record pace.

More here


Developer corner Back to top

Informix Chat with the Lab

Topic:    Informix Software as a Service - Bluemix Demo
 
Date:    Thursday, September 25 2014
 
Time:    8:30 AM Pacific
10:30 AM Central
11:30 AM Eastern
4:30 PM London
5:30 PM Paris

Speakers: Nagaraju Inturi and Nick Geib

IBM announced BlueMix, IBM's Platform as a Service. IBM software, including Informix, is available for use in Software as a Service (SaaS) fashion. See Bluemix and Informix services in action! See how fast and easy it is to get a cloud-hosted application using Informix as a backend up and running in the Cloud.

Watch the Informix Chat with the Lab page for registration.


RFE Corner Back to top

Just in case you are not aware, some time ago IBM created a public website to collect the requests for new features directly from users. The RFE (Requests For Enhancements) website is included in developerWorks. You can access it here.

Once you logged in with your usual IBM ID, choose "Information Management" in the Brand dropdown box and "Informix Servers" or "Client Products" in the Products dropdown box.

The interesting thing is that any request, including your request, if you place one, are submitted for to be voted on. This means the RFEs that receive more votes have a greater chance to be considered by the architecture and development teams for further consideration. In other words, this IS the opportunity to provide enhancement ideas even if you are not the biggest IBM customer on the planet earth.

The idea of the RFE corner is to provide a digest on new Informix RFEs and make those RFEs more visible and accessible for the community, so that you can vote for them in a faster and easier way. By participating actively in this website, IBM will have solid and useful elements from the customer base to introduce new functionality to Informix product.

Some RFEs will be of great interest, others will not seem useful to you. This is why your opinion is important. Do not hesitate to vote and place comments!

New RFE for August 2014, July 2014, June 2014

You can access each RFE by clicking on the above links. At the bottom of each RFE page you will find a hyperlink to vote for it. You will see the Request stats, including number of votes for this request, on the right side of the request page. The more votes, the greater the chance an enhancement will be addressed by the Development Team, taking into consideration the general interest.

I also recommend you examine the full list (54 RFE for Informix Server as of today) and vote for the enhancements you would like to see implemented.

Eric Vercelletto


Calendar of events Back to top

October - 2014
Date Event Location Contact
26-30 IBM Insight 2014 Las Vegas, Nevada
 

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

Blogs and Wikis that have been updated during the last month

More Blogs and Wikis

 
Forums, groups, videos, and magazines

There is now an Informix group on LinkedIn. The group is called "Informix Supporter", so anyone loving Informix can join, from current IBM employees, former Informix employees, to users. It will also be a good occasion to get in touch with others or long-time-no-seen friends. If you fancy showing the Informix logo on your profile, join.


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.