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Highlights: IDS 10 free downloads for IIUG members 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:
It has been a hard and fascinating month. At the beginning of the month I was in Vienna at the IIUG/IDUG conference, my wife was in Brazil giving a seminar on intellectual property, my youngest daughter bag packing in China and my two other kids at home in Israel. A truly international family. After a few days at home I headed to the IBM IOD conference in Anaheim. It is not as cool as it sounds. Being away from family and work has its price. I often ask myself why I am doing it. Serving on the board is not part of my professional career and putting in many hours week after week is less time I have to spend with my family. The reward is to be part of the growing Informix success. Informix is a major part of my professional life and is the main software product for my company but there is more to it than that. Informix for me is a passion. Many of you share this passion with me. I would like to see more taking this extra step joining the IIUG board, participating in our local user groups, our forums and if it is not too much to ask supplying content for the Insider. This issue of the Insider has more highlights then regular articles. So many great things are happening with Informix and the IIUG that I did not know which of them to highlight. I hope I will have the same problem in November. This is the first time that a director of IBM Information Management is addressing us directly in the IIUG Insider. Beside the valuable information, it is a proof of the growing relationship between the IIUG and IBM. Read about IBM Information Management sales strategy, show it to your management and colleagues and help Informix regain its place in the market. I would like to thank Alyse for sharing this Information with us and for her strong support. Gary Ben-Israel
IDS 10 Free downloads for IIUG members IBM is offering free IDS 10 Ux5 downloads. It is a full IDS 10 product except for replication. There is no time limit and the only limitation is a 5 concurrent session limit. The downloads are available only at the IIUG member area. To obtain the downloads go to http://www.iiug.org/members and login in, or you may use your personal login link at the bottom of this newsletter. Once you login, go to Software Downloads and click on the IDS 10 button. Make sure you update your profile before you download. The profile information is very important for us, so please review it carefully and make sure it is up to date. If you are not an IIUG member, please join us; it is free of charge and offers much more then downloads. Downloads are available for the following platforms:
The software is based on the latest version of IDS 10 Workgroup Edition and has no limitations except for a five user limit. The IIUG wishes to thank the following people for making this happen: Bernie Spang, Jerry Keesee, Bruce Weed, Cindy Fung, Gary Proctor and most important all the IBM Informix Developers for creating the best database on the market today. Gary Ben-Israel Dear Informix User Community, As the worldwide leader for our Data Server sales business, it was my pleasure to spend some time with the IIUG board at our first annual Information on Demand event in Anaheim, California and to update them on our Informix product and go to market strategy. We had very open dialog regarding our sales approach of our Informix products, and I wanted to share some of that dialog directly with you. This is captured similarly to the Q&A form that we held at the conference. I know you will agree that IBM continues to strongly sell and support Informix across all facets of our business. Thank you for your continued loyalty!
Alyse Passarelli New Features Highlighted at Information On Demand 2006 Conference /noticias.info/ Anaheim, CA - 16 Oct 2006: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today unveiled details of the next-generation Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) data server-code-named "Cheetah." IDS, a key element of IBM's Information Management portfolio, is a relational data server that delivers exceptionally fast OLTP performance, high reliability and near hands-free administration. During the Information On Demand event, IBM will preview the roadmap and upcoming features of IDS Cheetah, which is designed to introduce unprecedented capabilities in spatial and temporal data management. This capability can be critical for customers - such as shipping companies - who require detailed, real-time knowledge of their assets which can be spread across a large geographic region. Scheduled for release in 2007, IDS Cheetah is expected to support and further IBM's efforts to help clients meet their data management goals by creating unparalleled opportunities for users to extract value from their business information. "IDS is ideal for customers who either don't need or can't have large numbers of DBAs," said Arvind Krishna, vice president IBM data servers. "IDS Cheetah will build upon IDS' ability to handle image data, cartographics as well as the use and storage of 3-D geometry." IDS is a leading integrated data server in many market segments such as retail, telecommunications, healthcare, government and SMB. The continued popularity and use of IDS is illustrated by the fact that in North America alone, eight of the top ten retailers and twenty of the top twenty-five supermarkets are IDS customers. The low administration requirements of IDS enable customers to deploy thousands of IDS instances world-wide, integrated in applications in locations where there are no technical resources required to support the database. For example if you place a cell phone call in North America, Europe or Asia odds are that your call information will be routed quickly and accurately thru an IDS server to validate the call. Likewise, emergency call centers rely on the dependability and industry-leading replication capabilities of IDS to ensure that their systems are always available. Customers, developers and partners can find out more about IDS at: http://www.ibm.com/software/data/informix/ids/ IIUG board meeting in Vienna and AnaheimThe IIUG board of directors had a split meeting. The first half was during the IIUG/IDUG conference in Vienna. The second half was during the IBM IOD conference in Anaheim. The board does not usually have meetings during conferences, but this time it was impossible to schedule a separate meeting in addition to two adjacent conferences. Each board member reported his or her activities on the action items assigned at the previous meeting in San Diego in February. During the meeting in Anaheim the board met with most of the VPs of IBM Data Management. The VPs presented to the board the activities and new positioning of Informix within IBM. It is the first time executives in charge of the whole of Data Management met the IIUG board and discussed the current and future activities for the product. The relationship between IBM and the IIUG was promoted, and we believe it is one of many signs that Informix is gaining momentum within IBM. I am confident that we will see the same momentum in market place growth as well. On behalf of the IIUG board of directors, I would like to thank Bob Picciano, VP World Wide Sales for Information Management; Alyse Passarelli, Director of World Wide Sales Data Servers; Bernie Sprang, Director of World Wide Marketing Data Servers; and Deborah Landers, VP World Wide Client Support Information Management, for dedicating their time to the IIUG board. In addition, we thank our long-time friend and supporter, Jerry Keezee, Director of Informix Product Development; Danillo Novelli, World Wide Informix Sales; Cindy Fung, IDS Product Management; and Gary Proctor, Informix Channel Marketing, for their ongoing support. The board has elected Stuart Litel as the IIUG president for 2007. In the past years Stuart has done a remarkable job for the IIUG and Informix. We wish him luck. Stuart, your success is our success. Keep up the good work! Gary Ben-Israel The Informix Customer Advisory Council (CAC) met for the first time since the Informix Acquisition in 2001. The council, led by Cindy Fung, IDS Product Manager, is composed of representative Informix customers from around the world and the IIUG board of directors. The council met for two days and saw a presentation on the new Cheetah features by IDS development team, and was addressed by Ambuj Goyal, Information Management General Director, and Arvind Krishna, VP Data Servers. The CAC's purpose is to work with IBM to provide early input on product requirements and IDS strategic direction. The meeting was very successful, and apart from learning about IBM future plans regarding Informix, many issues and concerns were raised, including vendors not supporting Informix, requests for new features and much more. The IIUG board is in favor of any activity that strengthens the communication between IBM and Informix users. We hope the CAC will establish a new channel of communication and strengthen Informix's position within IBM. Gary Ben-Israel The IIUG/IDUG conference in Vienna was the first full Informix conference ever. We had 34 technical sessions and the venue was cozy and efficient. Of the 3 conferences I attended in the last few months, the Vienna conference had the best technical content. The addition of IBM speakers from Europe delivered an ideal mix of IBM US, IBM Europe and user speakers. We had many first-time presentations. Writing this after attending the IBM IOD conference, I still think that as far as Informix technical content goes Vienna had the best offer. However there were only a handful of attendees. As we do in all IIUG/IDUG conferences, we had a "best overall speaker" and a "best user speaker" award. The best overall speaker was Carlton Doe for his presentation, "Using IDS Extensibility in Everyday Applications", and the best user speaker was Darryl Priest for his presentation, "Accessing Your Databases the Open Source Way". It was the second time Darryl won the best user speaker award. We would like to thank Darryl, Carlton and all our speakers for their time and effort. Many of you responded to my question in the September Insider as to why the registration numbers are so low. I would like to thank all of you who took the time to respond. Getting feedback is very important to me. If you have any comments, concerns or requests, please email me. Gary Ben-Israel The Information on Demand conference in Anaheim was much more then a conference. It was a spectacular event. There were loads of technical sessions, keynotes, road maps, meetings with the top IBM data management executives, a huge vendor exposition and entertainment. The Anaheim Convention Center and the nearby hotels where crowded with over 5,000 attendees from all around the globe. By offering much more than just technical content, the conference attracted managers and decision makers as well as technical people and geeks. The highlight of the event was the announcement of Cheetah the next release of IDS. IDS has gained its rightful place alongside the other IBM data servers. For Informix users this was a giant change and the message was everyhere - in the keynotes, in discussions and in the presentations. Informix sessions were no longer in a hidden corner. The Informix user attendance was also impressive. I am sure that the content and the welcome Informix users received will place the IOD conference again as the main technical event of the year. Some of the Cheetah features, like the new admin console, were demonstrated in the Expo and sessions. As a participant in the Cheetah beta program, I can tell you there is much more. Cheetah is going to offer great features in performance enhancement, administration, autonomics, security and availability. Stay tuned as IBM reveals these new features. Gary Ben-Israel
The International Informix Users Group congratulates you for winning with Informix.
Informix User Forum 2006 A Two-Day User Group Technical Conference December 8-9, 2006 Washington DC, USA The Washington Area Informix User Group (WAIUG) and the Southeast Informix Users Group (SEIUG), based in Atlanta, GA, are teaming up to present Informix and DB2 User Forum 2006, the premiere Informix and DB2 regional user group technical conference in the eastern U.S. The Informix User Forum, previously sponsored biennially by WAIUG, has long had a reputation for excellence in both value and technical content. Now, the two groups have joined forces to evolve the Forum into an annual two-day conference. This year's event will be held December 8-9 in Washington DC. Forum 2006 promises to provide even more technical content, plus opportunities to network with fellow users and access to information on the latest vendor offerings. This, combined with a registration fee of US$ 120.00 (pre-register for $80) for the entire conference, makes the value of this event hard to beat. Visit the Forum 2006 Web site to find more details about the conference and an on-line application for submitting your presentation abstract: http://www.iiug.org/waiug/present/Forum2006/Forum2006.html The keynote speakers for the Washington DC Forum have been announced!On Friday December 8, Ambuj Goyal, General Manager of IBM Information Management will speak and on Saturday December 9, Arvind Krishna, WorldWide VP of Data Servers and R & D of Information Management will speak. This is the first time either of these two special individuals have spoken at any user group meeting any where in the world, and here they will BOTH be speaking at the same event. So come hear them talk, and see how Informix plays an integral part of the IBM Information Management portfolio. This is truly an event not to be missed. IDUG/IIUG NA Conference San Jose May 6-10, 2007Call for Presentations for the IDUG/IIUG NA Conference 2007 ended September 1st. We had almost 100 abstracts submitted from both end users and IBM employees! The IIUG CPC will be meeting in Chicago the weekend of September 29th to select the best abstracts and create an agenda for the conference. There will be 4 tracks again in 2007, jam-packed with new and exciting Informix technical content! Stay Tuned. Ask the Experts - European IDUG 2006, AustriaThe Ask the Experts session is always a popular one in the North American Informix conferences, so I wanted to make sure everyone got to hear the newest information presented at the European conference. The main "buzz" was about a recent article listing a security issue that occurs during the installation of the Informix V10. An IBM response to that can now be found on the IIUG web site at http://www.iiug.org/resources/articles/sec_ids10_installer.html. Our expert panel included three IBM experts: "Cosmo" aka Simon David, a user of Informix since 1987; Jonathan Leffler - who quickly replied HE had been an Informix user since 1986, and Carlton Doe - who didn't try and compete with Jonathan and Cosmo for the most years title. We also had John Miller III in the audience to add to the discussion. Audience: Do we still need to spend time laying out our disks with SAN? Cosmo: Yes, you want multiple dbspaces, and fragmentation still. Informix doesn't really need you to worry about the layout anymore. Jonathan: You are no longer limited by 4 Gig disks. Don't have that many spindles anymore. Recovery makes it important not to have one single huge dbspace. It are still big advantages for separating things. Carlton: You should fight with your disk and unix administrator not to give you raid 5 environments. Get as many small arrayed disks as possible. Where the instance thinks there are multiple I/o disks, it will span multiple I/o threads out there. It will require extra work on the dba part. Jonathan: You will get respectable results out of the box, but you can improve on this with extensive work. Audience: If you have fragmented indexes, Informix has a fixed formula for the size of the index fragments. When will we have control of this? Jonathan: In a future release it will start allocating this better. They are aware of this problem, and will be dealing with it in the future. Audience: Could there be more ways to reduce damage from all the automation that happens in Informix. Would like to turn it all off. Jonathan: Any controls you currently have you will continue to have in the foreseeable future. If you want ultimate performance, you still want to use explicit fragmentation. It would be extremely hard to have the engine try to determine how to do that. That is why the default is round robin, to attempt to get multiple fragments involved. The louder a customer yells the more likely you will get your feature requests into the product. Audience: What is the future plan for rowids? Jonathan: Automatically fragmented tables do not have rowids automatically. If you add rowids it will drop the automatic fragmentation. Users need to get rid of using rowids. Not good logic for your code. Only one Informix program depends on rowids. Mentioned he has only ever had one person who asked for enhancements to rowids. In general it should not be used for any functionality. Just add your own unique key to the table. Kate Tomchik
Save Twice! Get 10% and up to $5,000 with an IBM Education Pack - online account Buy a $25,000 or $50,000 IBM Education Pack - online account and watch the savings multiply. You can save not once but twice with our special limited time offer. When you purchase $25,000 of training to open an IBM Education Pack - online account, save 10% and pay only $22,500. Save a second time when you receive an extra $2,000 in bonus dollars posted to your account right away. That's $27,000 worth of training for just $22,500! And when you purchase $50,000 of training in your online account, you pay only $45,000, plus you will receive $5,000 in bonus training dollars for an account value of $55,000. That's a total of $10,000 worth of training-free! Don't miss your chance to Save Twice! October 17, 2006 - February 16, 2007. Prepare for Information Management Professional Certification with On-line Assessment ExamsTest your readiness and identify areas in need of focused study to prepare you for success on exam day. These assessments are offered through Prime/Prometric at a low nominal fee of $10 USD . The test fee applies worldwide to each time a test is taken, even if the same test is retaken. VISA, Master Card and American Express credit cards are accepted. http://www.ibm.com/software/data/education/cert/assessment.html New IBM Informix Dynamic Server Version 10 Professional Certification Role and ExamJust released, now you can validate your skills and demonstrate your proficiency on IBM Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) technology by becoming an IBM Certified System Administrator - System Administration for IBM Informix Dynamic Server V10. Becoming an IBM Certified Professional can help you excel at your job by giving you and your manager confidence that your skills have been tested. To achieve this new level of certification, candidates must take and pass the brand new exam, System Administration for IBM Informix Dynamic Server V10 - Exam 917. http://www.ibm.com/certify/certs/ixsedyn10.shtml L1846 * IBM Informix Dynamic Server Administration * Classroom * 4 days * $ 2,500Develop the skills necessary to successfully administer one or more database servers. Learn how to configure and initialize a database server instance, configure and test client connectivity, configure and manage memory and disk usage, plan and implement system maintenance tasks, and configure the server for optimal Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) or decision support. Next class is November 28. http://www.iiug.org/url/IBM_IDS_Admin.html Check out the latest Information Management Featured title: Refactoring Databases: Evolutionary Database DesignThis comprehensive guide and reference helps you overcome the practical obstacles to refactoring real-world databases by covering every fundamental concept underlying database refactoring. Using start-to-finish examples, the authors walk you through refactoring simple stand-alone database applications as well as sophisticated multi-application scenarios. You'll master every task involved in refactoring database schemas, and discover best practices for deploying refactorings in even the most complex production environments. Learn More: http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/education/bookstore/ IBM Informix Education from IBMCome to IBM to get all the latest information about the Informix product family. With courses grouped as Foundation (Basic), Level 1 (Intermediate), Level II (Advanced) and Master Series Workshop (Expert), you are certain to find the right level of Informix training to meet your needs. They are delivered in the classroom, some via e-learning and can also be customized to meet your needs. Get a window into some great skill building and certification opportunities by visiting our visit our Informix curriculum view.
New on developerWorks Push the limits of Java UDRs in IDS V10 Learn how to write server side Java code in the form of a user-defined routine (UDR), running inside Informix Dynamic Server. This tutorial covers the fundamentals, and then jumps into a real-life example. You'll see how to call your Java UDR from an Informix 4GL application and see how to include this example into the Eclipse development environment. Use IDS with J/Foundation to host a Java application service Learn how the Solano extension to Java UDR support lets you host a Java application service directly from within the data server. http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/db2/library/techarticle/dm-0610bowerman/ A new release of InformixDB, the Python API module for developing Informix applications in PythonI am pleased to announce a new release of InformixDB, the Python API module for developing Informix applications in Python. Changes since version 2.2:
Downloads and info at: http://informixdb.sourceforge.net Best regards, Carsten Haese
Hotel chain upgrades CDI software to boost bookings October 18, 2006 (Computerworld) -- Choice Hotels International Inc., the world's second-largest hotel franchiser, is upgrading its customer data integration (CDI) software as part of a drive to boost room bookings and revenue while offering better perks for loyal guests. Choice, whose properties include Clarion Hotels, Comfort Inn, Econo Lodge, Quality Inn, Rodeway Inn and others, is in the midst of moving to Version 6.1 of Initiate Identity Hub software, from Initiate Systems Inc. of Chicago. Identity Hub, which Choice first began using in mid-2004, helps the hotel chain match the 100,000 new guest bookings it receives daily from its nearly 6,000 properties to those in its existing customer database, said Choice CIO Gary Thompson. With Version 6.1 and a new services-oriented property management system that its franchisees are deploying, Choice wants hotel guests to be linked to records in its Informix data warehouse as soon as they check in. "We need to be able to do on-the-fly identification of our guests," said Thompson, a 15-year veteran of Choice. That would allow Choice, which can now provide personalized offers and perks in real-time only to guests who check in with their loyalty program membership numbers, to tailor its marketing efforts better and help create what Thompson described as a yield management system equal in sophistication to what major airlines use today. With 6,000 hotels and motels worldwide, Choice is second only to Wyndham Worldwide Corp. in the number of hotels it holds. Wyndham Worldwide operates Super 8, Days Inn, Ramada and others. Though based in Silver Spring, Md., almost all of Choice's 170-strong IT staffers are based in Phoenix. Despite that lean team, Choice built its current all-in-one property management software, called Profit Manager, which it released 10 years ago for use by its franchise hotels. Choice added CRM software from Unica Corp. in 2002. Two years later, it began using Identity Hub. "It's always a challenge to get enough information from our guests to uniquely identify them," Thompson said. "Identity Hub sits in the background and makes sure all of the info the CRM system is pulling is de-duped." http://www.iiug.org/url/Computerworld_18oct06.html IBM to unleash CheetahComputerWeekly by Antony Savvas/p> Wednesday 18 October 2006 IBM has taken the wraps off its next-generation Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) data server - codenamed Cheetah. IDS, a key element of IBM's Information Management portfolio, is a relational data server that is designed to deliver fast OLTP performance, high reliability and "near hands-free administration". http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2006/10/18/219230/IBM+to+unleash+Cheetah.htm Run Cheetah RunIDS's next release speeds ahead with security upgrades. DB2 Magazine - Quarter 4, 2006 z Vol. 11, Issue 4 The fastest animal on the planet is lending its name to the next version of Informix Dynamic Server. Due out in 2007, IDS's next release, code-named "Cheetah," is one of the fastest OLTP data servers in the world. IDS is a key database for OLTP on Linux, Unix, and Windows platforms. Cheetah will offer significant improvements in performance, availability, security, and manageability over previous versions, including patent-pending technology that virtually eliminates downtime and automates many of the tasks associated with deploying mission-critical enterprise systems. In my previous column I gave an overview of some of the new features. I've since learned some specifics about Cheetah's security features, a major element of the next release. http://www.iiug.org/url/DB2mag_21oct06.html
IBM Introduces Processor Value Unit Licensing On July 25, 2006 IBM announced the replacement of its Per Processor licensing structure with the Processor Value Unit licensing structure. This change impacts our IBM middleware products using the Per Processor metric in the WebSphere, Tivoli, Lotus, and Information Management brands available on Passport Advantage. For complete information go to:
New on the IIUG website Our Press Corner where you can find:
Jean Georges Perrin This is just a "heads up". We are collaborating with DBTA magazine to run a "Benchmark Survey" during November. This survey is being sponsored by Embarcadero Technologies. When the survey is distributed please take the time to complete it. The results will be published through the Insider as well as in the DBTA magazine. So. Here is the deal. Once the survey is ready to roll, we will email you, asking you to take part. Please do so. We are looking for a very high response rate and with your help we can achieve it. Thanks, David Fraser We have had enquiries about establishing a Spatial Special Interest Group. Both IBM and Informix users are doing a pile of work developing Location Based Services using the Spatial and or Geodetic datablades. If you are keen on keeping up play on the establishment of a "Spatial" then please email me with your interest. Just email me on david@iiug.org. Spatially yours, David Fraser
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.
For comments, please send an email to gary@iiug.org. |
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