Database defense against the dark political arts

There is an interesting new article written by Marty Lurie and his son Aron Lurie available at the IBM Informix Developer Zone:

Database defense against the dark political arts

The article talks about establishing an early warning system for database performance, especially for IBM's strategic data servers (IDS and DB2). The authors combine several interesting technologies (PHP, JpGraph, JMeter and Esql/C) in the article.

Why upgrade to IDS 10

An important new white paper has been published by Jacques Roy (IBM worldwide sales organization). The white paper explains the advantages of IDS 10 in comparision to versions 7.x and 9.x.

The following topics are covered in detail:

• Easy Upgrade
  • Upgrades in minutes from previous IDS versions 7.24, 7.30, 7.31, 9.21, 9.30 and 9.40
  • IDS customer stated that 2.5 million 4GL code lines did not even need to be recompiled to work with IDS 10
• Performance
  • IDS 9.40 is about 15 to 20% faster than IDS 7.31
  • IDS 10.00 is about 5 to 10% faster than IDS 9.40
  • Customers state that searches taking about 5-10 minutes are now taking seconds under IDS 10
• Reliability
  • IDS 7.31 is already known for it's legendary reliability, IDS 10 is even better
  • Top Retailer reports 99.999% up time for about 10.000 IDS instances
• Manageability
  • IDS 10 contains a bunch of new features in this area like: Configurable page size, single user mode, external optimizer directives, multiple fragments in single dbspace, default roles, ontape use of stdio and even more
• Application Development
  • Seamless integration of IDS 10 in IBM's software group portfolio (Alphablox, Websphere, Tivoli, Rational...)
  • CSDK provides plugin for Visual Studio .Net
• Others
  • Different flavors of IDS 10 for more flexibility (Express, Workgroup and Enterprise Edition)
  • IBM MTK (Migration Tool Kit) supports migration from Oracle and Sybase to IDS 10

Read the complete white paper here:

Jacques Roy - Upgrade to IDS 10

If you need additional information about IDS 10, take a look at this new IBM Redbook:

IDS V10 - Extended Functionality for Modern Business

IDS is the backbone of new Websphere RFID Product

IDS has been choosen by IBM as backbone for a new product called the Websphere RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) Information center.

Why did IBM favor IDS instead of DB2 ?

Because IDS provides superior extensibility features, outstanding replication features, nearly hands-free administration and a legendary reliability. Attributes that DB2 is not able to provide in the same depth as IDS. This decision shows the ongoing progress of Informix@IBM. I'm confident that we will see further IBM products that will favor IDS technology.

You can read more about Websphere RFID Information Center here:

CRM: IBM Introduces WebSphere RFID Information Center

Computerworld: IBM pushing RFID data repository

Cheetah Hands-On-Workshop

IBM Germany recently announced a Cheetah Hands-On-Workshop. This workshop is aimed to decision makers, database administrators and application developers. It will demonstrate the superior capabilities of the upcoming Cheetah Release.

Don't know if IBM will provide similar workshops in other countries. Just ask your IBM representative and demand for it !!

Oracles database business declines

The newest quarterly figures published by old bull Oracle show a decline in database sales. Just 9% growth in the combined database and middleware revenue. I guess that the middleware growth rate is actually higher than 9%, which means that the pure database license growth is even worser.

IDS had a fantastic double digit growth rate (around 20%) in 2006. This is no surprise if you take a look at the impressive results of the oninit/openpsl IDS survey. More and more decision makers, database administrators and application developers are realizing that IBM's secret weapon is the only database available today, that provides a real business advantage over the competition.

The upcoming Cheetah Release will deliver exciting, new functionality that further transforms IDS into an administration free zone.

An interesting survey has been published by the IOUG (Independent Oracle User Group) regarding High Availability Trends. This paper really documents the difference between promises written down on powerpoint slides and the real daily database business.

Just an interesting qoute contained in the white paper from an Oracle database administrator working in a large government agency:

"The greatest challenge is to keep up with all the Oracle bugs and patch fixes. Even the current version of 10gR2 that we are on has a large number of bugs and issues. Keeping on top of these is a big challenge, considering that we have over 100 databases.”

That says it all. You can download the complete white paper here:

IOUG 2006 Survey on High Availability Trends

Think about the statistics and statements presented in this white paper and compare them to the oninit/openpsl IDS survey. I'm sure that afterwards you will be interested in the following link about porting your application to IDS:

Porting to Informix

Merry Christmas

I wish all friends and supporters of The Informix Zone Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thank you for your support.

In 2007 we will see a great INFORMIX comeback. No doubt about that.