IDS Forum

Re: Informix 7 Migration

Posted By: Obnoxio The Clown
Date: Thursday, 29 September 2011, at 7:34 p.m.

In Response To: Re: Informix 7 Migration (JONATHAN WEBB)

On 29/09/2011 11:25, JONATHAN WEBB wrote:
> Hi,
>
> First ill start by trying to answer some of your questions...apologies for any
> bits im missing, please ask if you'd like to know. Im a Wintel engineer
>
> We are using R4GL 7.5 (so ive been informed!) i dont know if that will have
> any impact at all?

Not really.

> Active users, average about 50 users at once, if we push it, goes to 70.
> Theoretical maximum number would be 100 (never hit this!).

I reckon Innovator-C might be a possibility.

> The Informix DB is approximately 10Gb in size.
>
> This is the response that ive had from the developer, hopefully you can get
> more out of this than I can do.
>
> NB: The Collection aka TC, is the primary set of applications that are used.
>
>
> _______________________________________________________________________________
>
> "The 4GL Environment consists of the Informix 4GL Development Environment,
> Informix 4GL Runtime Environment& the Informix 4GL applications (The
> Collection programs). The TC programs are not compiled to be direct
> executables – they are run through the Informix 4GL Runtime environment. The
> Informix 4GL Development Environment and 4GL Runtime Environment are licensed
> per user. Licensing cost for 4GL and database is significant and varies
> between machine platforms/OS and number of processors on the host machine.
>
> NB We also use the Informix DB Access Tools (mainly used by developers, but
> users also execute queries through this tool).

This comes with the database, but there are other options available,
like SQLCMD.

> NB the Informix 4GL Runtime& TC programs must execute on the same server on
> which the database resides – this is a requirement of Informix 4GL. "

Bullshit.

> _______________________________________________________________________________
>
>> From this im taking it that our Dev doesnt think that we could move the
> informix DB over to CentOS/Ubuntu install as the 4GL applications require
> local access to the informix DB. Does that sound about right?

He's talking out of his arse. It's perfectly feasible to separate 4GL
from the database.

> Where to now...
>
> So we have no money to do anything about licensing, or buying new hardware,
> hard financial times im sorry to say.
>
> What I do have is some half decent hardware avilable. A VMware ESXi 4.1u1 box,
> with two 2.9Ghz Xeon 6core CPU's. 1.5TB of disk space running on dual port 10k
> SAS drives in RAID 5, and 48GB of RAM. There is more than enough grunt on that
> box for the user base that we need to support.
>
> So visualization is the plan for the minute at least, it gives us the
> flexibility to move the machine around or push down to bear metal if we need
> dedicated hardware.
>
> With that in mind, CentOS would be the OS of choice, seeing as its background
> is Redhat it should provide the most compatibility for what we are doing, and
> the price is right.
>
> Im thinking that id be looking at building.
>
> 1 x VM for Informix Innovator C (free edition), this will allow me to address
> 4 cores and 2GB of RAM for the DB. Im guessing with the number of sessions we
> are running and the DB size this should be enough.
>
> 1 x VM for the 4GL applications to live on.

Although having said that it's possible, I've no idea why you would want
to. Having multiple VMs is pointless for this exercise. I'd just install
Innovator-C on the bare metal and port it to Aubit-4GL.

> So now the questions I have!
>
> Given what the dev has mentioned to me, does Aubit 4GL look like a possible
> solution?
>
> Is creating a couple of VM's the best place to start?

No. I can't see what it's going to give you.

> How to migrate data from the Informix 7.5 live DB to the new VM runnning the
> latest Informix Innovator C?

There is a utility called "dbexport" which if you use it correctly, will
unload the data into text files, which you can FTP across to the new
box. There is a corresponding "dbimport" utility that will read the
output of dbexport and create a suitable database on the target machine.

> Is there a better way to do this?!

Not really, it's quite simple. I suspect most of your effort is going to
come from porting to Aubit-4GL, because it may be more strict than R4GL,
which is notoriously lax about things like variable initialisation, etc.

--
Cheers,
Obnoxio The Clown

http://obotheclown.blogspot.com
I will now proceed to pleasure myself with this fish.

Messages In This Thread

• Informix 7 Migration
  JONATHAN WEBB -- Wednesday, 28 September 2011, at 11:31 a.m.
  • Re: Informix 7 Migration
    Alexandre Marini -- Wednesday, 28 September 2011, at 11:42 a.m.
  • Re: Informix 7 Migration
    Marco Greco -- Wednesday, 28 September 2011, at 11:47 a.m.
    • RE: Informix 7 Migration
      Noel Murphy -- Wednesday, 28 September 2011, at 11:58 a.m.
  • Re: Informix 7 Migration
    Obnoxio The Clown -- Wednesday, 28 September 2011, at 11:53 a.m.
    • Re: Informix 7 Migration
      Hrvoje Zokovic -- Wednesday, 28 September 2011, at 1:47 p.m.
      • Re: Informix 7 Migration
        JONATHAN WEBB -- Thursday, 29 September 2011, at 4:15 a.m.
  • Re: Informix 7 Migration
    JONATHAN WEBB -- Thursday, 29 September 2011, at 6:25 a.m.
    • RE: Re: Informix 7 Migration
      Marcus Haarmann -- Thursday, 29 September 2011, at 7:11 a.m.
      • Re: Informix 7 Migration
        Alexandre Marini -- Thursday, 29 September 2011, at 8:08 a.m.
      • Re: Re: Informix 7 Migration
        Art Kagel -- Saturday, 1 October 2011, at 8:11 p.m.
    • Re: Informix 7 Migration
      Obnoxio The Clown -- Thursday, 29 September 2011, at 7:34 p.m.
      • Re: Informix 7 Migration
        JONATHAN WEBB -- Monday, 3 October 2011, at 6:21 a.m.
  • RE: Informix 7 Migration
    Scott O'Rourke -- Thursday, 29 September 2011, at 9:46 a.m.

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