Monthly Archives: January 2014

Our next Washington Area Informix User Group Event

Free Informix Technical Workshop

  • Date: Friday, March 21, 2014, 9:00am to 5:00pm
  • Location: IBM Office – 8401 Greensboro Drive, Suite 120, McLean, VA 22102
  • Continental breakfast and box lunch will be served

Presenter: Carlton Doe, IBM Informix Database Specialist and author of “Administering Informix Dynamic Server: Building the Foundation”

One of the hottest marketing buzzwords in the IT industry today is NoSQL where data is manipulated without the constraints or rules typically associated traditional database systems. Informix now has NoSQL / JSON capabilities built into it. But it’s more than just the ability to store and retrieve these new objects, with Informix, the objects can be used in conjunction with other objects in traditional or objected oriented format. For example, Informix can use TimeSeries, regular data and NoSQL in a single operation!

Carlton is working on a new class focused on NoSQL integration into Informix. He’s agreed to present it in our next meeting though the class isn’t in its finished form.

This will be a free 1 day technical workshop covering features and enhancements and hands on labs.

Please register here -> Registration

Informix 12.10 Roadshow

A free day-and-a-half, technical event by IBM for Informix Users, designed to give you insight into the proven IBM® Informix® technology that solves some of the toughest business problems in the world today. This roadshow is designed to help you understand the many new features and enhancements in the Informix 12.1 product — the beginning of the next decade of Informix technology!

A partial agenda includes:

  • Enhancements to Informix Warehouse Accelerator
  • New functionality for ER and H/A clusters
  • Increased autonomic administration capabilities
  • New SQL functionality including OLAP queries
  • New features and performance with Informix TimeSeries
  • New backup/recovery technology
  • Expanded compression and associated features
  • The Informix Hypervisor Edition
  • and More!!!

Each day will begin at 9:00 A.M. Breakfast and lunch will be provided on the first day. On the second day, only breakfast since class will be over before noon.

Informix Performance Tuning Technical Training Day – Thursday, November 8th 2012

The Washington Area Informix User Group hosted a one day Informix Performance Tuning Technical Training Day.

Morning Session – Special Guest – Scott Lashley, Kernel/Performance Architect, IBM Informix IDS Portland, OR

Scott is the IBM Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) Kernel/Performance architect. Starting with Informix Turbo and the implementation of blobs, Scott has been actively developing Informix database engine technology since 1987. Scott was the kernel architect for Informix XPS, Informix’s shared nothing architecture database product. Scott spent a few years helping IBM DB2 LUW by leading the HADR project before returning to Informix IDS for the IDS Cheetah release. Scott’s passion is on developing technology to help reduce the human cost of maintaining the IDS database engine with emphasis on self tuning and self maintaining algorithms along with continuing to improve transaction and query performance. Scott’s current focus is on accelerating query performance using main memory techniques. Scott has a BA in Computer Science and Religion from Mt. Vernon Nazarene University, Mt. Vernon Ohio. Plus, Scott referee’s 350+ adult recreational basketball games a year.

Some of the topics Scott will cover include:

  • Query Processing
  • Indexing
  • Diagnostics
  • Storage Enhancements
  • Networking
  • And More ….

Afternoon Session – Informix Performance Tuning by Art Kagel and Lester Knutsen, Advanced DataTools Corporation

We will cover some of the tips and tricks from our Fastest Informix DBA Contest held at the last IIUG conference. The goal of the contest was to see who could optimize an Informix database server running 1,000 OLTP users in under one hour and generate the most transactions per minute.The Grand Prize Winner of the new Apple iPad and the Fastest Overall Informix DBA was Andrew Ford. Andrew’s results were almost three times faster than the next closest contestant’s results. Andrew generated over 57,000 transactions per minute.

Washington Area Informix User Group TimeSeries Hands on Lab

The last Washington Area Informix User Group event was a one-day Hands on Lab on the Informix TimeSeries technology that is being used in the IBM Smarter Planet initiative with Metering Data and Smart Grid.

Informix is a market leader in the integration of what are called “extensibility” features that enable the database architect to natively create, store, and manipulate complex User-Defined Data Types (UDTs) with User-Defined Routines (UDRs) as though they were built-in data types in the database engine. With this capability, Informix can solve very complex problems with simple SQL statements. As a result, Informix is the perfect database engine to help create a Smarter Planet.

This lab will expose participants to one of these extensibility features — the Informix TimeSeries technology. A “time series” is any set of data that is accessed in sequence by time and can be processed and analyzed in a chronological order. Informix TimeSeries can be used in financial, scientific, utility, manufacturing, and other industries where data is captured over time and needs to be analyzed quickly and easily. Informix introduced some enhancements in the Informix 11.70.xC3 release and this lab will be based on that release.

In this Proof of Technology, participants will get hands-on with Informix TimeSeries technology to create and use regular and irregular times series, containers, calendars and more. Data will be loaded using Informix TimeSeries Virtual Tables and a bulk load routine. The student will use several Informix TimeSeries functions to hide/reveal data, perform complex calculations and more. Finally, participants will use an application that combines Informix TimeSeries and Informix Spatial technology to track vehicle movement as well as location and condition exceptions within a vehicle fleet.

User Group 2011 Technical Roadshow

Date – December 1 and 2, 2011 9:00am – 5:00pm
Location – IBM, 600 14th St NW, Washington DC

Folks, we had a great User Group meeting and lab by Scott Pickett, IBM Informix Worldwide Technical Sales lead. He lead us through the presentations and hands on labs on the new features in Informix 11.70. This was a great opportunity to try out the new version and learn the latest features.

Link to Download the Presentations

FREE Technical Training and Information for Informix Users

What is the Informix Technical Roadshow? The 2011 Informix Technical Roadshow is a two-day, deep-dive technical event that gives you hands-on experience with the latest IBM® Informix® releases and Informix Warehousing technology. This roadshow is designed to help you gain fresh, innovative ideas for optimizing your business performance and creative competitive advantage – and it is absolutely free to attend these events.

The Roadshow topics include:

  • Latest features of IDS 11.70 Flexible Grid
  • Technology Storage Provisioning
  • Time Series
  • Smart Metering
  • Informix Warehouse Accelerator Autonomics

March User Group Event

In March Carlton Doe, IBM Informix Technical Specialist and author of “Administering Informix Dynamic Server: Building the Foundation“, presented at our user group meeting and conducted a 2 day Informix Hands-on-Lab.

  • Washington Area Informix User Group Meeting – New Informix Ease of Administration, Informix Flexible Grid, Informix Automatic Storage Provisioning by Carlton Doe

    • Date – Friday, March 11, 2011 9:00am – 12:00 noon.
    • Location – IBM, 600 14th St NW Washington, Washington DC
  • Informix Hands-on-Lab – Informix Flexible Grid and Informix Automatic Storage Provisioning by Carlton Doe (limited to 15 people)

    • Date – Thursday, March 10, 2011 9:00am – 5:00pm (part 1)
      • and Friday March 11, 2011 1:00pm to 5:00pm (part 2)
    • Location – IBM, 600 14th St NW Washington, Washington DC

At the recent IBM Information on Demand Conference, IBM announced the latest in a continuing series of updates and enhancements to IBM Informix Dynamic Server — version 11.7! This new release continues to enhance and extend the market leading technology of Informix in a number of key areas; including data replication and clustering, ease-of-use, security, and scalability.

To help you learn more about what Informix 11.7 has to offer, IBM is sponsoring a FREE, 2-day hands-on seminar. In this seminars you’ll get a full explanation of all the latest technologies and features including Informix Flexible Grid, Informix Automatic Storage Provisioning, application development enhancements, migration assistant, instance cloning and more. The hands-on labs will give you the ability to use these technologies in real-world conditions.

Informix Tech Day was held on Tuesday, November 9, 2010

We had an exciting deep dive into Informix 11.70 on November 9, 2010 by John Miller III, STSM, Embedability Architect from IBM. Art Kagel and Lester Knutsen shared the results of their hands on tests with the beta pre-release of Informix 11.70, and its great performance improvements.

Agenda: (Link to PDF Flyer)