IIUG Insider (Issue #85) July 2007 Other Issues

Highlights: New Informix videos, New Cheetah book, Cheetah to visit Kiwis and Aussies, Guardium is new IIUG Gold Sponsor, and much, much more...

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
• Cool stuff
• Getting down and academic with Informix!
• Guardium - Fabulous new Gold Sponsor of the IIUG!
• Swim the English Channel with Pete Perez the Pirate
• And now for the completely ordinary... IIUG TV!
• New Informix Articles at DB2mag.com!
• Informix Solution Portal
• The official IBM Cheetah (IDS 11.1) announcement (again)
• Conference corner
• 2008 IIUG Informix Conference - Call For Presentations
• Missed the IOD early bird special. You can still worm your way in!
• Attention Kiwis and Aussies. Cheetah is coming to town
• Other Stuff Corner
• IBM Information Resource Catalogue
• What is new in Cheetah
• Become a IIUG sponsor
• Informix in the news and other odd things
• Prosieben moves to Primetime with IDS 11
• Cheetah Talk - the IBM video experience
• The catalog you have all been waiting for is finally here...
• Do you Have the Mark? Get "Ready for" Informix!
• New Informix IDS Redbook on Replication
• Also... The Cheetah Redbook draft is now available...
• Where to get a copy of the Carlton Doe "Cheetah" book
• IIUG website stats
• Informix news
• From the Press Release Corner
• Informix resources
• Informix Blogs and things
• IIUG Board
• Calendar of events
• Useful links
• Closing and credits

Now. Turn the page... hit the 'pg dn' key... click down the page... whatever nods your noggin but read this issue of the IIUG Insider and then write me a note (david@iiug.org) . Do it NOW. :) :) :)

Greetings to all cheetaholics. Informix is back and Cheetah rocks.

You will be pleased to know that some hardy souls out there in Cheetahland responded to my call for action and sent me some real material to publish in this here rag. This is a good thing as it means I do not need to make it all up myself. But I can take more... So get your act together and tell me the fantastically clever things that you are doing with Informix.

Oh. And three kind people out there in Cheetahland did write to me to admit to reading the Insider cover to cover (so to speak). Thanks guys and gal.

Now... here is a story, just hot off the press. If you are of a sensitive nature then just skip forward. But if you like a good yarn, or you are an IBM rock dweller, then read on.

Not long ago, (so the story goes,) in the fair Midwest, a young fellow was attending a DB2 training course. Minding his own business he just happened to mention some 5 year old news about the future of Informix. DUH. Silly, silly boy. Little did he know that the ever hovering Informix FUD antenna picked up the signal, and before you could say 'show me to the barn' the ICBM's at the Informix secret FUD buster bunker site were primed, aimed, lit and fired. That day, the poor innocent learnt that Informix was indeed alive, well and kicking... hard. And then, just to make sure he had actually got the message, a couple more missiles were tossed over his way. They were un-necessary. This newly educated, honest young fellow, pledged allegiance to the Informix flag and, according to his nearest and dearest, is now a trusted Informix friend, knowing this... that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the "livid Litel".

So... here is the point of that little fairy tale. If you are an IBM'er who is still living under a rock, then understand this...

Informix is back, the Cheetah is alive... and it bites.

This months Insider is an eclectic mix of (very) intelligent editorial, even more intelligent academic Informix papers, news about new sponsorships, conferences, new resources, new books, news for swimming enthusiasts and all sorts of other stuff. This is one Insider you just have to read cover to cover.

So... get on with it. Read on!

Kind regards

David Fraser
Cheetahman
IIUG Board of Directors
david@iiug.org

PS. Attention all Kiwis and Aussies. The great man (Jerry Keesee) is coming to a town near you in August. You gotta get there and hear the Cheetah story. Details inside.

President's Note:

Stuart Litel
President

For those out there with an IQ greater than 2, this is essential reading. Titled "Integrating query feedback based statistics into IDS" the quartet of Behm, Markl, Hass and Murthy have gone where no one has ever gone before. Fortunately, having an IQ of 1, I am spared from understanding this masterpiece. However, if you want to someone to describe a method of, and prototype implementation for, automatically maintaining high quality single-column statistics, as used by the optimizer in IBM Informix Dynamic Server (IDS)... then this is for you.

Originally published at BTW2007, the paper is now available for download at:

http://www.iiug.org/articles/ids_feedback_stats_integration.pdf

Get it quick before supplies run out. ;-)

It is a real pleasure to welcome Guardium as a Gold Sponsor of the IIUG. Often seen at conferences, Guardium Inc. has linked itself closer to the Informix community through this Gold sponsorship arrangement.

So what do these guys and gals to? Well. In their own words...

Granular Auditing for Informix - Without Performance Impact

Guardium V6 is a non-invasive, network-based solution for continuous fine-grained auditing of Informix Dynamic Server environments. Unlike traditional database logging solutions, Guardium's solution creates a comprehensive audit trail of all database activities - including privileged user activities (DDL, DML, DCL) and security exceptions (failed logins, SQL errors, etc.) - without impacting performance or requiring changes to your databases or applications.

Guardium also helps you easily pass your compliance audits with a library of 100+ pre-configured reports for regulations such as SOX, PCI, and data privacy laws, based on best practices controls consistent with guidelines from Big 4 audit firms.

By continuously monitoring and contextually analyzing all SQL traffic at the network layer and on the database server itself, Guardium's solution immediately identifies unauthorized changes to critical databases as well as unusual or suspicious access to sensitive data. You can also use the system to:

• Produce change reconciliation reports that automatically compare all detected database changes with approved change requests from your ticketing system.
• Audit all changes to database files (such as sqlhosts and onconfig) and environment variables (such as INFORMIXSERVER and ONCONFIG) that can impact database security.
• Monitor both network and local access (shared-memory, named-pipe, streamed-pipe, local-loopback, etc.).
• Automatically discover and classify sensitive data in your database infrastructure (such as cardholder or PII data).
• Support separation of duties by storing all audit data in a secure, tamper-proof repository that can't be modified by privileged users.
• Provide a quick alternative (compensating control) to the complex process of implementing DBMS encryption (PCI-DSS Req. 3) for legacy systems.
• Implement real-time security alerts to immediately identify unusual activities based on continuous comparisons to baselines of normal activity.
• Protect Web-facing systems from external attacks such as SQL injection.
• Audit enterprise applications (PeopleSoft, SAP, Siebel, etc.)
• Provide a single, unified solution for all your database platforms (Informix, Oracle, Microsoft, Sybase, DB2).

Want to know more.... Of course you do. Check out http://www.guardium.com and tell them that I sent you. :)

This comes from the "And now for something completely different" department.

Pete is the bloke who actually knows how the whole IIUG website and Insider gubbens works and for some completely bizarre reason this Californian fashion accessory, who really should know better, has, with wife and kinder, decided to swim the English Channel. At the time of writing I have absolutely no idea if he is swimming to England or away from it. Hopefully away, like many of our forebears. And considering that most of the 7 members of the swim team, sport the surname Perez, one can only think that this is some form of mass escape. But that begs the question... from what? The man is not an Oracle DBA. Why should he escape England (aside from the obvious...) Is this just another form of Californian mass hysteria? Perhaps it is... if your surname is Perez that is?

So what convinced Pete and the rest of the Perezites to take the ultimate dip? Well you can find out here http://www.saipantribune.com/newsstory.aspx?cat=2&newsID=70533 and, better still, follow their progress, stroke by stroke, here http://www.sakmanchamorro.org/blog.php.

Pete, you silly fish. We are behind you all the way. Best wishes.

I repeated this; simply on the basis that some of you did not go to http://www.iiug.tv last month like you promised. With an international cast of acclaimed experts, Cheetah impersonators, paid actors, Kiwi flyboys and oninit specialists you will see and hear the best of the unbiased opinions of the world's biggest Informix bigots. Check it out. People pay money for stuff only half this good.

So check out the two new videos just released July 25, 2007. If you have never seen the famous Dr. Ambuj Goyal (General Manager of IBM Informix Management) or Dr Arvind Krishna (Vice President of Data Servers IBM Information Management) here they will tell you what they think of IDS and Informix. The second video, there is even a rumor that our own board member Kernoal Stephens was the inspiration of the video as he always tells us that "I get in at 9AM and I leave at 3PM. I don't need to carry a beeper or cell phone cause I am an Informix DBA".

Get these while they are hot at http://www.db2mag.com/informix2.

Informix's New Conference by Stuart Litel
IIUG heads to the heartland for an all-Informix event.

IDS 11 Races Ahead by Lester Knutsen
The "Cheetah" release bests previous releases.

Cisco's Informix DBA Leads the Pack by Kim Moutsos
Database specialist Nancy Balsbaugh pushes Informix's limits.

Online Exclusive: Purifying XML with IDS by Jean Georges Perrin
Learn what happens when "Cheetah" speaks XML.

Check this out! Great stuff in here, particularly if you are an ISV, RISV, SI and RSI or OEM partner. (5 points if you correctly guess what all those mean :) ).

http://www-03.ibm.com/developerworks/wikis/display/im/Informix+Solution+Portal+-+Home

For those who were asleep when reading the last Insider.

http://www-306.ibm.com/common/ssi/rep_ca/0/897/ENUS207-130/ENUS207130.PDF . It is actually quite good.

Proposal Submission Deadline: August 31, 2007

The Conference Planning Committee is currently accepting presentation proposals for the 2008 IIUG Informix Conference on Informix-related topics in any of the areas listed below. Subjects related to all current Informix and Informix-heritage products are welcome, as well as products that operate in those environments such as other IBM products, plus third party, Open Source and cross-platform products.

Presenters will receive a complimentary all-conference pass. See the conference Web site http://www.iiug.org/conf/ for full details.

Conference sessions will be organized into four general subject area tracks that will run concurrently:

Database Applications and Tools --
Application development tools and methodologies, application and database architecture, and maximizing application and SQL performance.

Informix Administration and Performance --
Database and data warehouse design and administration, performance tuning, backup and restore, and security.

The Informix Edge --
Aspects of Informix that provide a distinct edge in application development and processing such as emerging technologies like XML and Web services, operation in cross-platform and heterogeneous environments, and support for Open Source and third-party tools.

Advanced Support Topics --
Studies and advanced sessions on support topics, many taken from real-life development and support scenarios.

A survey was recently conducted to help determine the technical topics that would be of most interest to attendees.

One key finding was that there is significant interest across a broad range of Informix-related subject areas. If you are knowledgeable in an Informix-related area, there are likely a number of other users that would like to hear about it.

Some areas that scored particularly high on the survey were:

• Performance Tuning and Monitoring
• SQL Optimization
• Replication
• Development Languages, Tools and Web Programming
• Linux and Open Source
• Web Services and SOA
• Encryption, Auditing and Compliance
• Advanced Support Case Studies and Topics
• New Features in IDS 11 / Cheetah

To see the presentation guidelines and to apply on-line to present at the Conference, see the conference Web site at http://www.iiug.org/conf/.

The deadline for submitting your presentation proposal is August 31, 2007.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact us at conference@iiug.org.

Thanks,

The IIUG Conference Team

Register Today! IBM Information On Demand 2007, October 14-19, 2007, Mandalay Bay Resort, Las Vegas, NV. The premier information management event for business and IT professionals.

Select from over 600 sessions: a 2 1/2 day business leadership track with 120 sessions and a 4 1/2 day technical track with 500 sessions.

Save US$300. International Informix Users Group discount registration available through August 15th.

To enroll, visit http://www.ibm.com/events/InformationOnDemand and use promotion code LVUFMX under the "company information" section.

The Informix greats are coming to town and you absolutely need to get to these events for two reasons. The first is that the people coming to speak are the top team.

Jerry Keesee is the IBM Director of Informix Database Development. He is the guy that runs the team that builds IDS. I know Jerry. He is a great guy, fabulous speaker, very knowledgeable and the one bloke you can ask about your favourite features. Then there is...

Robert Uleman. Robert is the IM spatial guru and probably is the best person you can speak to about IDS and location based services especially in a spatial context. Again, I know Robert and he is just a great guy and very knowledgeable. But... there is more... in the form of...

Chris Chilcott. Chris is a heritage Informixer (he goes way back) and works in pre-sales consulting roles. I have heard Chris and he has a very deep understanding of IDS and how to "get the best from the beast".

Then, for the Aussies only, this team is joined by John Murphy from NSW Department of Lands. I met John last year. He is a huge advocate of Informix and, for an Aussie, an all round good guy.

The second reason for going to these sessions is this. Not only will you learn heaps but the more that turn up the more IBM will fund future visits. It all becomes a virtuous circle. So take your co workers, your boss, your bosses boss... take them all. They will find this the most stimulating event they attend this year.

Cities/Dates/Locations

All events start at 9:00am and finish at about 1:00pm with food :) .

IIUG, IBM and Extension Media are excited to announce the expanded IBM Information Management Resource Catalog to be released in time for IBM Information on Demand 2007.

This expanded media program enables companies to influence over 60,000 IT Professionals using Informix, DB2, UniVerse and UniData software and showcase their products or services for an entire year.

We are pleased to offer IIUG GOLD and SILVER Sponsor Partners a 25% discount when you showcase your company in this publication.

The IBM Information Resource Catalog program includes email newsletter marketing, print resource catalog participation, online marketing and visibility at important trade shows such as IBM Information on Demand 2007 in October.

We hope you can take advantage of your IIUG discount and participate in this important print and online publication.

For further details on this special opportunity, call Dennis Leavey at Extension Media at +1 347-351-8067 or email dleavey@extensionmedia.com.

What is new in Cheetah

Check this out. http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/db2/library/techarticle/dm-0705saraswatipura/

It has the full list of what's new. Have you looked yet!!!! Get in there dudes. :)

Michael Segel is currently the board member who is in charge of sponsorship for the IIUG.

He's currently looking for a few good companies who are interested in participating in an exciting opportunity to help sponsor the IIUG.

Don't look at this as a way to routinely get your message out to approximately 17,000 potential customers and influencers, or to have your company's icon plastered on a website that currently averages 1 million hits a month.

Look at this as a way to give back to your user community and show your support for a great set of products!

Please visit: http://www.iiug.org/sponsors/opportunities.php for more information on sponsorship or contact Michael himself at mikey@iiug.org.

ProSiebenSat.1 Produktion, Germany's largest privately owned television company, has moved its information technology (IT) infrastructure to primetime with the help of IBM's IDS 11, increasing response times by 50 percent.

ProSieben, an IBM Informix customer for the last 10 years, has been able to improve its business operations with the help of IDS. Since upgrading its technology to IDS 11, ProSieben has seen a reduction in DBA workloads, an increase in response time, greater business stability and increased operational efficiency. Using IDS 11, ProSieben can also benefit from the classic features that have always made IDS so popular, including reliability, scalability and availability.

"The high reliability, new features and superb transaction throughput in the next generation Informix Dynamic Server will help us to increase response times by up to 50 percent," said Markus Holzbauer, senior administrator of media & production systems for ProSiebenSat.1 Produktion. "This is critical in ensuring that we can effectively support innovative new services and aggressive growth."

To see the case study, visit:

http://www.iiug.org/url/ProSieben.html

"Cheetah Talk," a newly-released IBM video, captures the excitement surrounding IDS 11's launch. The video showcases the new-and-improved features that IDS 11 has to offer while highlighting the classic qualities that have made Informix technology so popular.

The "Cheetah Talk" video includes interviews with IDS experts who share their knowledge of the product and their excitement for the launch.

Check it out here at http://www.iiug.tv.

Yes... the catalog you have all been waiting for is finally here...

Now we need your help in getting your Applications in the Catalog so that we have an impressive, credible, useful, catalog to share with our customers, IBMers, and the rest of the world in order to show everyone, IDS is alive and growing.

Even if you are an ISV, RISV, SI and RSI, OEM partners... you can be in the catalog simply by validating your application on the "Ready for Informix Program"

Your benefits:

• Your applications are promoted on line and in this PDF document.
• You can use the "Ready for IBM Informix " Logo

The logo stands for:

• IBM's commitment to IBM Informix
• Knowledge that the solution meets IBM's criteria and standards
• Potential reduction in evaluation and sales cycle.
• Terri Gerber, terri_gerber@us.ibm.com & Garry Proctor, gproctor@us.ibm.com are your key contact for this program.

Check it out:

http://www-03.ibm.com/developerworks/wikis/display/im/Informix+Solution+Portal+-+Home

IBM's "Ready for Informix" data server software program is now ready to validate Informix Business Partners and customers.

"Ready for Informix" is the latest addition to the wildly successful "Ready for..." program in the Information Management family. Designed specifically for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and Global and Regional Solution integrators of IDS, becoming validated with IBM demonstrates a commitment to quality within the information technology (IT) industry. It also shows customers that your IDS solutions meet IBM's high integration standards.

Joining this program offers many benefits for IDS Business Partners and customers. When you display the Ready for Informix mark, you instantly leverage IBM and Informix brand equity and market to a broader customer base. Your customers know they can expect easy integration and lower development costs when implementing your validated solution.

In addition to displaying the Ready for Informix mark, participating in the program will give you extra, IBM-initiated visibility. You'll be prominently placed on the Informix Solution Portal and will receive an IBM quote in one of your press releases. As part of the validation process, you will have access to Worldwide Technical support, sales enablement materials, and free education and training.

To learn more about the Ready for Informix program, access the Informix Solution Portal:

http://www-03.ibm.com/developerworks/wikis/display/im/Informix+Solution+Portal+-+Home

or email the validate team at validate@ca.ibm.com

Once you have the mark, make your mark! Participate in the IDS Partner Pavilion at the IOD Conference in Las Vegas this October. Here's your chance to exhibit your Informix integrated solutions to thousands of potential customers. You'll have strategic placement in a high visibility, heavily trafficked area, close to the specialty IBM IDS booths. If you have any questions or would like to get more information, please contact Irina Delidjakova (idelidja@ca.ibm.com, +1 905 413 3312).

For those who want to replicate and have forgotten how, then this is for you.

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247319.html

A must for young and old. Be warned though. Replication is so much fun it can become addictive. (In some countries warning stickers are being attached to the IDS documentation and it can't be sold to minors.) :)

Yep... it is true... the Cheetah Redbook draft is now published externally.

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/abstracts/sg247465.html?Open

This ebook is destined to become one of the most downloaded books of all time. Get it now before the download site crashes under the load.

Get it now!!!!

You have three choices. Either go to you local IBM rep and beat him up till he gets it for you, attend a local IIUG meeting in many cities form the schedule below or go to IOD. I suggest that you start with the IBM rep. If you don't know who the IBM rep is, then look in the phone book under IBM. :) But if you come to IOD, you can meet Carlton and get your copy for free with his autograph. And once you are done reading it, you can get some big money on E-Bay. This book is the best overview of IDS Cheetah I have seen and well worth the read.

Just for fun here are some of the vital stats from our web site...

IBM and AGS Announce Availability of New Solutions for Informix Dynamic Server

July 05, 2007 * IBM and AGS today jointly announced that the new Server Studio(tm) and Sentinel(tm) Release 6.1 - the premiere suite of integrated system management tools for Informix(r) Dynamic Server (IDS) - is available through IBM and AGS worldwide.

The IDS data server is a strategic element of IBM's Information Management software portfolio and the recently announced IDS 11 - code named Cheetah - delivers increased performance, reliability and scalability, along with the ability to handle massive volumes of complex data at very high speeds. IDS11 is also the industry's first data server to provide clustered data centers with continuous data availability and disaster recovery regardless of the geographic location or distance between backup data center sites.

Server Studio and Sentinel together form a powerful infrastructure of multi-platform tools that help both seasoned database professionals and novices alike manage IBM Informix data server environments with an unprecedented ease and productivity. Native support of IDS 11 new functionality in the Release 6.1 of Server Studio and Sentinel further enhances ability to deliver optimal performance, availability and maintainability of Informix databases throughout their entire operational life cycle.

Read the full press release at the IBM web site http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/21836.wss and get your download available in the IIUG member Area under SOFTWARE DOWNLOAD. You will find a link to get Server Studio and Sentinel.

IDS 11 HELPS MAKE REDLION KING OF THE JUNGLE

RedLion is adding innovation to GreenIvory's color palette. RedLion, a brand-new suite of SOA components for web publishing, seeks to help businesses by providing them with ground-breaking technological solutions. RedLion hunts down ways to bring web 2.0 to its users, easing publishing, gathering statistics, building portals and making websites more attractive. This is all made possible with the help of IDS 11.

IDS proved to be the best fit for GreenIvory, providing the RedLion suite with reliability, flexibility and extensibility. IDS also increases accessibility with the convenience of user-defined routines, and offers a comprehensive XML solution. This pairing of RedLion with IDS has made for a solution that is praised as completely new and innovative. "One reason we went to Cheetah - but not yet implemented - is XML," said Jean Georges Perrin, representative for GreenIvory. "We are quite excited about Cheetah."

Even though GreenIvory would still have developed RedLion without IDS, it has helped to make the suite possible. "[RedLion is] really intended for IDS," said Perrin. "We weren't planning on using anything else."

This new publishing product has been running for about three months now, and is even used in such online publications as Informixmag.com. GreenIvory's RedLion is expected to officially be let out of its cage by mid-summer.

Get the real oil on Informix from:

The IIUG forums at http://www.iiug.org/forums/technical.php **** these are very good****

IDS Experts at http://www-03.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/idsteam

Guy Bowerman at http://www-03.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/gbowerman

Fernando Nunes at http://informix-technology.blogspot.com/

Bell Micro and the Informix City at http://www.informixcity.com/ Check out their Oracle survey :)

The Informix mag at http://www.informixmag.com/

JGP himself at http://www.jgp.net

The Informix Zone at http://www.informix-zone.com

For the observant ones out there, I have removed the message I used last month. I did get some feedback which was great. But... if you want to participate then you have to do the email thing. So email me at david@iiug.org and tell me what you think.

BTW. And old Kiwi Informix enthusiast 'Trev' sends his greetings.

:)

ed

BTW. Check out the IIUG home page for the latest in Informix news at http://www.iiug.org

In response to your input, we have created a page on the IIUG web site containing all the links we used to include. Please find it at:

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

The International Informix Users Group (IIUG) is an organization designed to enhance communications between its worldwide user community and IBM. 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:		David Fraser Gary Ben-Israel
And a cast of thousands

For comments, ideas, information, more ideas, gossip, lies and general dudette type chatter, please send an email to david@iiug.org.