Tech Topic: Sysmaster Database

Managing and Optimizing the IBM Informix Server using the Sysmaster Database
Presented by Lester Knutsen on October 10, 2025

This recording is a preview of the presentation Lester Knutsen will give at the IBM TechXchange 2025 on Tuesday, October 7, 2025.
Lester Knutsen will present his Informix Sysmaster Scripts for monitoring and performance tuning an Informix Database Server from his Advanced Informix Performance Tuning Course. We will cover disk and chunk I/O, log turnover, performance ratios, table and index I/O, and identify the slowest SQL statements. Lester Knutsen is an IBM Informix Lifetime Champion with over 40 years of Informix experience. YouTube Replay: https://youtu.be/C9zk8FmuUFQ Download Slides: Sysmaster2025_LesterKnutsen.pdf Download Scripts: Sysmaster.zip
IBM TechXchange 2025: Managing and Optimizing the IBM Informix Server using the Sysmaster Database by Lester Knutsen
By Lester Knutsen on August 17, 2025
How to use the Informix Sysmaster Database to measure the health and performance of your Server. Click here to download my latest Sysmaster Scripts View on YouTube: https://youtu.be/C9zk8FmuUFQ Download PDF Slides Coming Soon – Watch a preview on YouTube I will be presenting my latest Informix Systmaster presentation at the IBM TechXchange 2025 IBM TechXchange 2025: […]
Informix TechTalk: Exploring the Informix Sysmaster Database by Lester Knutsen
By Lester Knutsen on July 1, 2024
  Click here to Download my latest Sysmaster Scripts Download PDF Slides here Watch Replay on YouTube Informix TechTalk: Exploring the Informix Sysmaster Database by Lester Knutsen From: Thursday, August 15, 2024, 2:00 pm EST Description: Lester Knutsen will present his Informix Sysmaster Scripts for monitoring and performance tuning an Informix Database Server from his […]
Informix TechTalk: Informix Sysmaster Database Queries for monitoring and performance tuning
By Lester Knutsen on December 8, 2022
Replay Informix TechTalk: Informix Sysmaster Database Queries for monitoring and performance tuning by Lester Knutsen From: Thursday, February 2, 2023, 2:00 pm EST Download my latest Sysmaster Scripts for this presentation – Sysmaster2023.zip YouTube Replays: https://youtu.be/C9zk8FmuUFQ Download Slides: Informix-SYSMASTER-2023-LesterKnutsen.pdf Description: Lester Knutsen will present his favorite Informix Sysmaster Scripts for monitoring and performance tuning tips. This […]
Exploring the Sysmaster Database – My New Scripts from the IIUG World 2019 Conference
By Lester Knutsen on September 24, 2019
These are my latest Sysmaster Scripts from my presentation at the Informix IIUG World Conference in 2019. Download presentation PDF: advancedatatools.com/…/Sysmaster_IIUG_Conf_2019_A12_LesterKnutse.pdf Download New Sysmaster 2019 Scripts (zip file): advancedatatools.com/…s/sysmaster2019.zip Download Past Sysmaster 2017 Scripts (zip file): advancedatatools.com/…s/sysmaster2017.zip
Informix Best Practices – Using the Sysmaster database to perform an Informix Server Heath Check
By Lester Knutsen on October 7, 2017

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.

Informix Performance Tuning using the Sysmaster Database (Updated)
By Lester Knutsen on March 24, 2015

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”.

Informix Performance Tuning using the Sysmaster Database
By Lester Knutsen on April 30, 2013

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.

Exploring the Sysmaster Database
By Lester Knutsen on October 26, 2002
This post is the original article I wrote on Exploring the Sysmaster Database and has been reprinted in the Informix TechNotes, the Informix DBA Survival Guide, Second Edition by Joe Lumbley, the Informix Handbook by Ron Flannery, and many other places.   Open the orginal PDF of this article: https://www.advancedatatools.com/Downloads/Symaster_articule.pdf When you list all the […]
Informix Tech Notes article on SMI and the Sysmaster Database (PDF)
By Lester Knutsen on September 8, 1999
First published in the Informix Tech Notes Magazine in 1999   When you list all of the databases on your Informix server, you will see one called “sysmaster”. This special database, which first appeared in Informix’s 6.x and 7.x servers, contains system monitoring interface (SMI) tables that can be used for monitoring your system. In […]