Informix TechTalk: Informix Sysmaster Database Queries for monitoring and performance tuning by Lester Knutsen

Replay Informix TechTalk: Enhancing Informix 4GL with TERMCAP Settings by Lester Knutsen

Informix TechTalk Replay: Introduction to Informix Performance Tuning by Lester Knutsen Tech Talk on Thursday, March 10, 2022 Description: Lester Knutsen will present his top 10 Informix Database Servers performance tuning tips. The Webcast is a free introduction to Informix performance from the first lecture of his Advanced Informix Performance Tuning Course. Lester Knutsen is IBM Informix Lifetime Champion, with over 40 years of Informix experience.

Informix Tech Talks Replay: Informix Benchmarks on Cloud Systems - Updated! by Lester Knutsen This is a replay of the Informix Tech Talk on December 9, 2021. Description: This is an update to the presentation at the Informix 2021 Virtual Conference. - What is the Cloud? - Other Benchmarks, and Tools I Used - Case Study – Supporting Informix customers on the Cloud - Observations About Informix in the Cloud - Updated Benchmark Results - Updated Cost Benefit Review and Learnings - Updated Performance Tuning Recommendations on the Cloud

Migrating and Upgrading to Informix 14 in-house or in the cloud. The easy and the hard way. by Lester Knutsen. There are several easy procedures to upgrade and migrate Informix. We will look at the easy way (in-place upgrades, dbexport, cdr migrate, backup/restore), but sometimes they may not work for you, and you need to create a custom process. We will go over a set of procedures and scripts using HPL, external tables, and parallel unloads/loads that I have used over the last few years to migrate from small systems up through terabyte-sized databases to VMs, new hardware, and the cloud.

Informix by default uses the Operating System (OS) to manage users. In this video, Lester Knutsen will demonstrate how to create a Non-OS Informix User that can access Informix databases without having an OS login. This is the first in a series of videos on Informix TechTalks by the IIUG. For more information on the International Informix Users Group (IIUG) please visit https://www.iiug.org

How do you use the command-line utilities to manage and monitor an Informix Server? We will discuss onstat, oncheck, and the new InformixHQ to manage your server.

How do you build databases and tables in Informix? We will discuss best practices for creating and managing databases and tables, partitioning, and database security. We will demonstrate object-oriented data types, using SQL to generate SQL Scripts and creating a Non-OS user for Informix database security.

How do you connect users and tools to an Informix Server from Windows, Unix, and the Web? We will discuss connections using Microsoft ODBC, Informix SDK, Java, PHP, DRDA, and other options. This is a Webcast reply from June 25, 2020.

How do you backup and restore an Informix Server? High Availability is crucial to a successful database. We will cover and demonstrate database backups, restores, and setting up High Availability Data Replication (HDR). This replay includes additional material on HDR setup and switching between Primary and Secondary Servers that is not covered in the original webcast.

How do you configure and maintain Informix Logs? The logs are critical to database reliability, and we will discuss best practices for managing and configuring Informix logical logs. We will also cover the backup and recovery of logical logs.

Disk IO is often the performance bottleneck for databases, every transaction needs to get written safely to disk fast. How do you set up and configure the disk space for an Informix Server? What disk and RAID configurations provide the best performance and reliability?

Informix Tutorials Webcast Replay - Informix Tutorial - Configuring a New Informix Server by Lester Knutsen, February 27, 2020. How to script configuring an Informix Server? This Webcast will cover everything you need to know to build with scripts, a new medium, or large server. The Webcast will be a review of the Informix ONCONFIG file and configuring memory, CPUs, Network, and Disk for a more extensive Informix Server configuration.

Informix Tutorials Webcast Replay - Getting Started with Informix by Lester Knutsen on Thursday, January 30, 2020, The Webcast is a step by step guide to installing and getting up and running a basic Informix Server. We will demonstrate using InformixHQ, the IBM Informix Knowledge Center, and how to find resources to get started with Informix.

Informix has Automated Update Statistics built into the server. Update Statistics collects metrics to enable the server to run your SQL faster. How do you monitor what tables and indexes need to have the statistics updated and manage Automated Update Statistics (AUS)?

How does the Informix SQL Optimizer choose which index or table or access method to use when running your SQL? This presentation will focus on how to view and understand the SQL Explain plan to see how your SQL is executed. The SQL Explain plan will provide times for each step in your process.

This presentation will focus on Best Practices for Informix database indexes. Every table should have at least one index, and managing indexes is an integral part of a DBA's task and time. Indexing is one method to optimize the performance of a database by reducing the number of disk reads when a query is executed. An index is a structure which is used to locate and access a row in a database table quickly. Indexes are used to enforce uniqueness, primary, and foreign keys and constraints. Indexes can also be a source of problems in a database and may slow performance down when misused.

IBM just announced the exciting new Informix 14 version in March. Advanced DataTools taught our first course for Informix DBAs on release 14 in April. We have been part of the beta programs and would like to share our findings including how to use the new installer, how to upgrade a database, and an introduction to the new Informix HQ server management.

Informix includes many Advanced SQL OnLine Analytical Processing (OLAP) functions that are rarely used, and we will demonstrate how to take advantage of them. OLAP is Business Intelligence queries that allow users to perform reporting for sales, marketing, inventory control, business processes, and many other functions. Typically it would require a multi-dimensional database. SQL OLAP functions allow you to roll-up, roll-down and slice and dice your data. We will demonstrate examples of Window Partitioning of data (before and after group by), Ranking, using row numbers, and before and after rows using ANSI SQL-99 standards, known as the Elementary OLAP package.

How do you capture the cost of SQL statements and activity on your database server. We will take a look at SQL Trace, and the Sysmaster tables that enable you to save and analyze the costs of your SQL.

This presentedesentation will demonstrate how to take advantage of the automatic Range Interval Partitioning and Rolling Windows to fragment your huge Informix tables. Automatically adding new partitions and fragments by interval can replace elaborate fragmentation schemes easily. The feature includes the ability to automatically drop partitions of old data reducing the need to purge old data.

The Informix database depends on the operating system for the CPU, Memory, Disk and Network resources. The presentation will focus on optimizing the Unix, AIX and Linux OS for the best database performance. We will review Kernel Settings, HugePages, enabling and disabling CPUs, OS disk scheduling, SAR and other tools for monitoring Unix and Linux.

This is the latest Webcast replay of Lester's talk on Exploring the Sysmaster database. He presented cripts to monitor and tune your Informix Server and perform a system health check. Examples include how to tell what is the most expensive query running on your server now, what page size is best for your tables, what indexes are used and not used, how is memory used on your server, and much more.... These scripts will help you identify the performance bottlenecks on your Informix Server.

Virtual Machines have many advantages and disadvantages. This Webcast will explore the best practices for running Informix in a Virtual Machine. We will look at small and large databases in virtual machines. A monster virtual machine is a VM with lots of memory, CPUs and disks. I have had the opportunity to performance tune many Informix database servers running in a virtual environment and will share some of the problems and solutions for Informix to work well in VM. We will talk about everything from a VM on my laptop to a VM with more than 256 GB of memory and more than 96 Virtual CPUs.

This is a continuation of an earlier Webcast on Informix Configuration, ONCONFIG, CPUs, and Memory.

This webcast will focus on best practices for Informix DBAs on Backup, Recovery, and High Availability Disaster Recovery (HDR).

This webcast will focus on best practices for Informix DBAs including: * CPU Recommendations and Best Practices * Memory Recommendations and Best Practices * ONCONFIG Recommendations and Best Practices

This webcast will focus on best practices for Informix DBAs including: * Informix Products Overview * Informix Architecture - Memory, CPU, Disk Requirements * Planning an Informix Install * Installing Informix * Software Directory Structure * Using Informix SQL * Informix Documentation * Informix Resources on the Web

Lester takes an Informix 4GL application written in 1993, called DBPrivileges, and guides you through the process of converting it into a modern application that can be run on Windows, Mac, iPad, Mobile or on the Web.

Lester again presented new scripts to monitor and tune your Informix Database server using the Sysmaster and Sysadmin Databases. This is major update to his most popular talk at the International Informix User Group (IIUG) conferences over many years - "Exploring the Sysmaster Database".

Do you have an Informix database and need to encrypt columns with privacy information? Do you have time to change all of your production applications to implement encryption? Have you had a security or FISMA/DISA audit? Lester Knutsen will present how we have converted existing Informix databases to add column level encryption with minimal impact to your existing applications. He will demonstrate how to take an Informix database and change it to use encrypted columns with little impact to your front end applications using triggers, functions and Informix encryption. Lester will also discuss simplifying access using roles to grant and revoke privileges.

This is a replay of our Webcast on October 15, 2013 to announce the results and winners of the Fastest Informix DBA Contest. Informix DBA's from around the world participated in the challenge to be the Fastest in a combination of OLTP and batch benchmark. The winner is the DBA who had the most transactions per minute in an OLTP benchmark and at the same time run a batch billing job and generate the most bills in a 10 minute run.

This is a replay of our Fastest Informix DBA Contest 2013 status update Webcast on August 20, 2013. This year the Fastest Informix DBA Contest will be held over the web so anyone, anywhere in the world can participate from July 9 to 31, 2013. The challenge will be a combination of OLTP and batch. The winner will be the DBA who can get the most transactions per minute in an OLTP benchmark and at the same time run a batch billing job and generate the most bills in a 10 minute run. For more information on the Fastest Informix DBA Contest click here!

This year the Fastest Informix DBA Contest will be held over the web so anyone, anywhere in the world can participate from July 9 to 31, 2013. The challenge will be a combination of OLTP and batch. The winner will be the DBA who can get the most transactions per minute in an OLTP benchmark and at the same time run a batch billing job and generate the most bills in a 10 minute run.

Lester Knutsen and Mike Walker will present a series of tools to monitor and tune your Informix Database Server. *Using SQL Trace to monitor user sessions *Tips for Remote DBA monitoring * Building a Monitoring Dashboard with Yellowfin BI

Lester presented new scripts for monitoring and tuning your Informix Database server using the Sysmaster and Sysadmin Database. This is an update of Lester's most popular talk at Informix user conferences over the past several years, "Exploring the Sysmaster Database", and will show what is new in Informix 12.10.

4 - Key to Enterprise Data Warehouse Development: Data Marts are Building Blocks to the Enterprise (Part of the “Building a Data Warehouse Series”)

3 - Successfully Transform and Load Your DataWarehouse: Using the Informix Data Warehouse Feature (Part of the “Building a Data Warehouse Series”)

2 - Fast Data Warehouse Schemas: Deploying a Star Schema (Part of the “Building a Data Warehouse Series”)

1 - Rapid Data Warehouse Development: Build a Pilot in 8 weeks! (Part of the "Building a Data Warehouse Series")

On Jun 19, 2012, we held a webcast with the Fastest Informix DBA Winner Andrew Ford, hosted by Lester Knutsen and Art Kagel, to share with other Informix users how the winners achieved their results. Learn about the tips and tricks the real Fastest Informix DBAs used to achieve their remarkable performance.

Our Webcast to demo the Informix Warehouse Accelerator on February 28, 2012. We have been using the Informix Warehouse Accelerator for over a year and I am continually shocked at how fast it is. In one set of benchmarks it ran 9 hours of queries in 14 minutes. Mike Walker, Art Kagel, and I will demonstrate our current benchmarks with this exciting new database technology. We will demonstrate ad-hoc queries on a bookstore database with 250 million customers and over a billion records in the fact table.

This is a replay from our webcast reviewing the results of our Fastest Informix DBA Contest II, done online in the fall of 2009, discussing how the winners did it. Congratulations to Tatiana Saltykova, new 1st place finisher in the Fastest Informix DBA contest! The challenge was to take a batch billing SQL job that took over 40 hours to run and optimize it and the Informix database configuration.