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IDS Forum
Re: migration checklist 7.31 to 11.7
Posted By: Art Kagel
Date: Wednesday, 21 December 2011, at 10:11 a.m.
In Response To: Re: migration checklist 7.31 to 11.7 (Konikoff, Robert W Mr CIV USA USAMC)
I did not say that I would not use them, only that their utility is a bit
limited. They do not reveal as much as you would assume they do. These
are useful in evaluating performance improvements under very controlled
conditions, say when you only change the SQL itself, add or drop an index,
or tweak a single server tunable parameter within a single environment.
But try to compare metrics across different environments of hardware, OS,
and RDBMS version or under load conditions that differ from production and
all bets are off.
Only testable responsiveness and query timings under production type loads
will tell you reliably whether performance will be better in the new system
than it was in the old one and by how much. Also do not forget to stress
test to determine how much headroom for growth you are buying. Is it
enough for projected growth versus current over-costs? Is it too much?
The new system may be faster than the older system now but if you may have
to spend uber-$$$$ again in a year or two because you did not purchase
enough headroom did you do right by your organization's budget? Similarly,
if you are paying for 20 years of futures for a system that will depreciate
in 5 years and probably be replaced for reliability concerns or
technological improvements in 8 years are you doing the right thing now?
Don't forget to consider future systems requirements in those future load
level predictions.
Art
Art S. Kagel
Advanced DataTools (www.advancedatatools.com)
Blog: http://informix-myview.blogspot.com/
Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that my own opinions are my own opinions
and do not reflect on my employer, Advanced DataTools, the IIUG, nor any
other organization with which I am associated either explicitly,
implicitly, or by inference. Neither do those opinions reflect those of
other individuals affiliated with any entity with which I am affiliated nor
those of the entities themselves.
On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 9:43 AM, Konikoff, Robert W Mr CIV USA USAMC <
rob.konikoff@us.army.mil> wrote:
> Art: Interesting point... you would not use the tests specified in the
> migration book? I read part of the migration guide from IBM that I
> downloaded
> (thanks to the contributions of IIUG!) and found these were key migration
> tests. I guess IBM doesn't like to tout the third party software.
>
> Thanks, Art, and to all that helped to point me in the right direction!
>
> Rob
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ids-bounces@iiug.org [mailto:ids-bounces@iiug.org] On Behalf Of Art
> Kagel
> Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2011 7:29 PM
> To: ids@iiug.org
> Subject: Re: migration checklist 7.31 to 11.7 [25685]
>
> The problem with using most of those suggestions to judge whether or not a
> new server is performing better than the old one is that they are only
> indicators. Except for running sample queries under time (or timex) they
> do not really tell you how your server is "performing". If the new server
> performs fewer IOs does that mean it's faster? Should be, one could assume
> that it means that the new server's cache algorithms are more effective
> giving better performance, but if other internal algorithms are slower the
> net effect could be slower performance despite fewer IO requests. Even
> using timex isn't great because it includes startup time for the executable
> that is running the query (so dbaccess or whatever) and that may be slower
> on the new machine but not affect user experiences since users may be
> running queries from inside an application that only has the startup
> overhead once a day - for this I would use sqlcmd's internal benchmark
> feature instead. In addition, testing individual queries does not subject
> the server to typical production loading which affects cache contents,
> locking overhead, lock and latch contention, etc. That's why if there is
> any question about the relative performance of the new or proposed system
> or if I want to test the performance effect of tuning or physical schema
> changes before implementing them in production I like to use iReplay. It's
> not just simulating production loads, it is running actual production loads
> against an otherwise identical server state over and over with only
> controlled changes.
>
> Art
>
> Art S. Kagel
> Advanced DataTools (www.advancedatatools.com)
> Blog: http://informix-myview.blogspot.com/
>
> Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that my own opinions are my own opinions
> and do not reflect on my employer, Advanced DataTools, the IIUG, nor any
> other organization with which I am associated either explicitly,
> implicitly, or by inference. Neither do those opinions reflect those of
> other individuals affiliated with any entity with which I am affiliated nor
> those of the entities themselves.
>
> On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 1:47 PM, Konikoff, Robert W Mr CIV USA USAMC <
> rob.konikoff@us.army.mil> wrote:
>
> > Art:
> >
> > Thanks for the notes... I'm getting a bit more confident that the small
> > scale,
> > SQL stuff for site specific jobs won't be that big of an issue (as long
> as
> > the
> > OS and environment doesn't change that much without the developers
> telling
> > us).
> >
> > FYI
> > I found a migration presentation that recommended running performance
> > snapshots with these recommendations, and comparing them with the new
> > instance
> > and use it for a baseline in tuning. It is really in the developer lane
> to
> > tune, not mine, but I like to be a little more proactive than they can
> be.
> >
> > During times of peak usage,
> > – online.log snippet, with some checkpoint durations in it.
> > – onstat –aF, -g all, -g stk all
> >
> > During times of peak usage, run the following onstats repetitively with
> -r
> > repeat option for a period of about 3 to 5 minutes:
> > – onstat -u to see the total number of sqlexecs used
> > – onstat -p for read and write cache rates, to detect deadlocks and the
> > number
> > of sequential scans
> > – onstat -g nta a consolidated output of -g ntu, ntt, ntm and ntd.
> > – onstat -g nsc, -g nsd, -g nss for status of shared memory connections
> > – onstat -P, -g tpf, -g ppf
> > – vmstat, iostat and sar for O/S and system reports. Check man pages for
> > usage
> > – timex of all regularly run queries
> >
> > Rob
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ids-bounces@iiug.org [mailto:ids-bounces@iiug.org] On Behalf Of
> Art
> > Kagel
> > Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2011 6:54 AM
> > To: ids@iiug.org
> > Subject: Re: migration checklist 7.31 to 11.7 [25673]
> >
> > See my comments below:
> >
> > Art
> >
> > Art S. Kagel
> > Advanced DataTools (www.advancedatatools.com)
> > Blog: http://informix-myview.blogspot.com/
> >
> > Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that my own opinions are my own opinions
> > and do not reflect on my employer, Advanced DataTools, the IIUG, nor any
> > other organization with which I am associated either explicitly,
> > implicitly, or by inference. Neither do those opinions reflect those of
> > other individuals affiliated with any entity with which I am affiliated
> nor
> > those of the entities themselves.
> >
> > On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 2:40 PM, Konikoff, Robert W Mr CIV USA USAMC <
> > rob.konikoff@us.army.mil> wrote:
> >
> > > WoW... thanks for the quick responses!
> > >
> > > Ok, so I didn't look hard enough and the PDFs were there. Thanks for
> the
> > > wakeup slap! :) Oh, and I remember now that I'm not supposed to call it
> > > IDS,
> > > but Informix Ultimate Edition.
> > >
> > > Art:
> > >
> > > To answer a few of the questions you had...
> > >
> > > Decremented commands: I'm trying to find out if any of the 'regular
> > stuff'
> > > in
> > > ISQL that we use (grant, revoke, etc.) has been retired or now has to
> be
> > > done
> > > differently. I'm not a developer, so I don't have to do all the 4GL
> > > migration,
> > > or work out the new footprint (which opened up a bunch of other COWs
> > (cans
> > > of
> > > worms)).
> > >
> >
> > Everything should work as it always has. Some newer Informix features are
> > still not supported by ISQL, but anything that worked before against 7.31
> > should work the same with 11.70.
> >
> > >
> > > As to how the migration is going to happen, it's beyond my control.
> > > However,
> > > as a user, I have to make sure 'everything else' works once it's done,
> so
> > > I'm
> > > piecing together a test plan and things to check, such as:
> > > - Environment variables for users (will users have to configure
> anything
> > > new?)
> > >
> >
> > No.
> >
> > > - Performance metrics
> > >
> >
> > That's a tougher one. There is a company, Exact-Solutions, that has a
> > product called iReplay which can capture production activity on your
> server
> > and replay it later for performance testing. It is possible to capture
> the
> > data from your current production 7.31 environment, restore a copy of the
> > 7.31 server onto a testbed machine, run some performance tests against
> the
> > copy using iReplay then perform the upgrade to 11.70 and replay the tests
> > again against the 11.70 instance. The iReplay product will report the
> > relative performance and yo can additionally do stress testing to get a
> > feel for your server's ability to support activity growth.
> >
> > > - Client access
> > >
> >
> > Same as always if you want. New options like the Connection Manager for
> > improved failover and load balancing among multiple servers.
> >
> > > - Schema comparisons (looking for surprises and Easter eggs)
> > >
> >
> > Lots of new features: new index types, new fragmentation schemes, etc.
> some
> > of which can further improve performance over and above the base
> > performance improvements just from the upgrade (there were baseline
> > performance improvements in 9.40, 10.00, 11.10, 11.50 and 11.70 so you
> have
> > a lot to gain), but the existing schema will work just fine.
> >
> > > - Test run of all our customer specific jobs
> > >
> >
> > Have fun.
> >
> > >
> > > Rob
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: ids-bounces@iiug.org [mailto:ids-bounces@iiug.org] On Behalf Of
> > Art
> > > Kagel
> > > Sent: Monday, December 19, 2011 2:06 PM
> > > To: ids@iiug.org
> > > Subject: Re: migration checklist 7.31 to 11.7 [25658]
> > >
> > > What do you mean by 'decremented commands'? What is it you are looking
> > for
> > > a tool to do for you here?
> > >
> > > The migration guide and other manuals are only chargeable if you want a
> > > hard copy or CD copy. You can download the documentation PDF files for
> > > free. It's probably on the same page you found the hard copy document
> > > ordering lines, but look for PDF Documentation Sets.
> > >
> > > Migration in-place from 7.31 to 11.70 is trivial and if your existing
> > > instance is error free it will be accomplished with little pain. If you
> > > want to take advantage of 11.70 features that were not available in
> 7.31
> > > after the migration, you can either reorganize the database(s) after
> the
> > > migration or unload the data from the 7.31 instance and create a new
> > clean
> > > 11.70 instance to reload the data into. A third option would be to set
> up
> > > Enterprise Replication between the existing 7.31 instance and a new
> 11.70
> > > instance, allow ER to replicate and sync the data, then at some point
> you
> > > can shutdown the 7.31 instance. The advantage of this last is that if
> you
> > > set up the replication to be bi-directional, you can always fall back
> to
> > > the 7.31 instance if there are undetected incompatibilities with your
> > > software accessing the 11.70 database later on.
> > >
> > > Art
> > >
> > > Art S. Kagel
> > > Advanced DataTools (www.advancedatatools.com)
> > > Blog: http://informix-myview.blogspot.com/
> > >
> > > Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that my own opinions are my own
> opinions
> > > and do not reflect on my employer, Advanced DataTools, the IIUG, nor
> any
> > > other organization with which I am associated either explicitly,
> > > implicitly, or by inference. Neither do those opinions reflect those of
> > > other individuals affiliated with any entity with which I am affiliated
> > nor
> > > those of the entities themselves.
> > >
> > > On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 1:57 PM, Konikoff, Robert W Mr CIV USA USAMC <
> > > rob.konikoff@us.army.mil> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Current version:
> > > > HPUX 11.23
> > > > IDS 7.31
> > > >
> > > > migrating to HPUX 11.i3
> > > > IDS 11.7
> > > >
> > > > I'm not the developer, but I have a lot of UNIX and sql tools used to
> > > > monitoring production. I know in HPUX 11.i3 there is a tool that
> comes
> > > > with it
> > > > to search all of your scripts looking for decremented commands.
> > > >
> > > > Is there such a think for INFORMIX?
> > > >
> > > > Also, rummaging through the IIUG site, I couldn't find any checklists
> > for
> > > > migration. The only hard reference I could find was at an IBM site
> for
> > > the
> > > > IBM
> > > > Informix Migration Guide, v11.50 (SC23-7758-03), but it costs $50USD!
> > > You'd
> > > > think it would be free if it got you to buy their high end products.
> > > >
> > > > Any tips, tricks, cautions, or SA/DBA-SNs (SysAdmin/DBA Suicide
> Notes)?
> > > >
> > > > Rob
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> *******************************************************************************
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> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > > --bcaec51a8672476bc704b476a349
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> > --90e6ba6e89741b0c4d04b484b8d4
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