Getting Started with IDS

(Informix on Campus Lecture Series)

September 13, 2010 © 2010 IBM Corporation

 Information Management – Informix

Contents

 Introduction to IDS
 IDS – Installation and Setup
 Client – Installation and Setup
 Java and IDS
 Informix with PHP, Ruby and Rails, and .NET
 IDS Administration Basics
 References

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Introduction to IDS

 What is IDS?
– Informix Dynamic Server
– An online transaction processing (OLTP) relational database
management system (RDBMS)
– Focused on:
• Performance/Scalability
• Ease of use/management
• Business continuity
• Security
• Adaptability to business applications design
• Support leading-edge development APIs
– Key industries
• Telco, Government, Retail, and Banking

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Introduction to IDS

 Informix 3.3 released in 1984

 Informix-online 5.00 released in 1991
 Informix Dynamic Server 7.10 release in 1994
 Informix acquires Illustra 1996
 Informix Universal Server 9.14 released in 1997
 IBM acquires Informix in 2001
 Informix releases:
 Informix Dynamic Server 11.10 July 2007
 Informix Dynamic Server 11.50 April 2008
 Current Version: 11.50.xC8

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Informix Product Family

Data Servers Tools & Connectivity

 Informix Dynamic Server  Informix 4GL
versions 9.x, 10.x, 11.x  Informix ESQL
 Informix Dynamic Server 7.x – C

 Classics – Cobol

– Informix C-ISAM  Informix EGM [w/ DRDA]

– Informix Standard Engine – SE
– Informix Turbo
– Informix OnLine – Version 5.x
 Informix XPS 8.x
 Informix Red Brick 6.x

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IDS – Winning Solution in All Industries

Public Sector Electronics

Telecommunications  Integrated Applications:

 Civic Administration  Text messaging
 Customs  Pay-per-View
 Education  Entry Access badges
 Health  Cell phone access Leisure
95% of all  Judicial  RFID
telecommunications  Law Enforcement
delivery providers  Military
 National Security Hotel and
 Tax Administration Airline Reservations
Online Gaming
Blazing-fast OLTP
Retail Nearly Hands-free administration
Legendary Reliability
Banking and Finance
IDS Powers 8 of the top Every credit & bankcard transaction
U.S. largest retailers authorization in US goes
through IDS
Extending the
Value…
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IDS Strengths

Invisible  Simple to use

– “Set it and forget it”
– Comprehensive Administration features
– Easy to integrate with other applications

Agile
 High Performance, highly scalable OLTP
– From 1 CPU to 80 or more CPUs on an SMP box
– Used on Wall St. for high volume market data

 Adjusts parameters based on load

Resilient
 Continuous availability

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IDS Architecture
Column-level
Encryption

I/O Processing
AIO*, ADM, Crypto
Custom
LIO, MISC VPs*
VPs*
PIO VPs
VPs Java UDRs

Java
Disks VPs*
Shared Memory
Buffer Pool, Locks,
Sessions, etc

Local Client
Extension
Processes
Communications
CPU
VPs Remote Client Processes
NET
VPs*
SQL execution

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IDS – Installation and Setup

 Getting IDS (through IBM Academic Initiative)
– Join IBM Academic Initiative and sign in as a member
http://www-304.ibm.com/jct01005c/university/scholars/academicinitiative/
– Go to the Software Downloads page
http://www-304.ibm.com/jct01005c/university/scholars/downloads/index.html
– Click on “Browse the Software Catalog” link
– Click on “Find by Search Text” link
– Enter search text - Informix Dynamic Server V11.50
– Select the “Images” tab, expand the search results, sort by date
– Know your platform? (Operating System and processor – 32/64bit)
– Select appropriate IDS V11.50.xC3 (x can be U/T/F/H; xC3 is latest as
of April 2009); at the bottom of the page select “I agree”, and download.
– For comparison of editions please visit:
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/informix/ids/ids-ed-choice/

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IDS – Installation and Setup

 Installing IDS
– Extract (Windows) or untar (UNIX) the compressed file
– On UNIX and Linux
• ./ids_install -gui
– On Windows
• Click on launch.exe or setup.exe
– On MacOS – launch the self-extracting .dmg file
– Administrator or superuser privileges required for installation
– Welcome screen: Click on “INSTALL PRODUCTS”
(Note: The following screenshots are from IDS V11.50.TC3 in Windows XP.)

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IDS – Installation and Setup

 Select the products that you need

(usually the server and the client)
 Follow the Install wizard
 Custom installation allows selection
of individual features
 Installation creates a user account
called informix, if it does not exist
 In Windows, provide a password for
informix user account
 If unsure, do not enable role
separation

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IDS – Installation and Setup

 Change or accept default values as needed

 Continue with the installation process
 In UNIX-type systems, creating a demo database server instance
during installation is useful
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IDS – Installation and Setup

 Default server configuration in Windows:

Server name: ol_svr_custom Server number: 0
Service port name: svc_custom Service port number: 9089
Server alias: svc_drda Alias port number: 9090

 To access the server:

– In Windows
Start  All Programs  IBM Informix Dynamic Server 11.50  ol_svr_custom
– In UNIX, set the following environment variables
• INFORMIXSERVER – name of server
• INFORMIXDIR – IDS installation directory
• ONCONFIG – name of the configuration file
• INFORMIXSQLHOSTS – name of the file with connectivity info
• PATH – add $INFORMIXDIR/bin to the PATH
– In UNIX, if demo instance was created, you can execute
• Bourne shell: . $INFORMIXDIR/demo/server/profile_settings
• C shell: source $INFORMIXDIR/demo/server/profile_settings.csh

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IDS – Installation and Setup

 Start the database server

– On Windows, it is setup as a service and starts up automatically.
From the command window enter: starts <server name>
– On UNIX-type systems, start IDS as user root or informix:
$ oninit
– To check the status of the server:
$ onstat –
IBM Informix Dynamic Server Version 11.50.UC3 -- On-Line -- Up 02:13:11 -- 78208 Kbytes
(“On-Line” denotes server is ready for use)
 Shut down the database server
– On Windows, stop the IDS service.
Start  Control Panel  Administrative Tools  Services
– On UNIX-type systems, as user root or informix:
$ onmode –ky

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IDS – Installation and Setup

 Creating a database
– To create a known demo database “stores”
dbaccessdemo7 stores –log –dbspace my_dbspace
– To create your own database use dbaccess and a valid SQL
statement (a command-line/screen mode client program
distributed with the server)
dbaccess - -
create database db1 in my_dbspace with log;
Ctrl + c to exit dbaccess
– dbaccess can also be used to execute a SQL script (test.sql)
dbaccess –e – test.sql
– The “-e” echoes the command to standard output
– The “-” says do not open any database, but connect to the
default server
– To enter in screen mode just type dbaccess (without any
arguments or options)
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IDS – Installation and Setup

 Adding space
– Logical spaces called dbspaces to store database info
– Dbspace = one or more chunks
– Chunk = physical storage like a file or a disk device
– Default in Windows:
rootdbs - C:\IFMXDATA\ol_svr_custom\rootdbs_dat.000 – 200MB
ol_svr_custom - C:\IFMXDATA\ol_svr_custom\ol_svr_custom_dat.000 – 200MB
sbspace - C:\IFMXDATA\ol_svr_custom\sbspace_dat.000 – 200MB
– To add a dbspace called my_dbspace:
• Create the file C:\IFMXDATA\ol_svr_custom\my_dbspace
• Allocate the file to IDS
onspaces –c –d my_dbspace –p C:\IFMXDATA\ol_svr_custom\my_dbspace –o 0 –s 102400
– In UNIX-type systems, the chunk file should be owned by user informix, group
informix with permissions 660

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Client – Installation and Setup

 Two options
– Informix Client-SDK
• Specific to IDS
• Does not support open-source Ruby and Rails drivers
– IBM Data Server Client
• Works with IDS and DB2
• Not available on MacOS
• Does not support complex types, opaque types, interval type, and
boolean is seen as smallint
• Supports all drivers discussed in this presentation
• Switching to Informix Client-SDK involves minimal changes

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Informix Client-SDK – Installation and Setup

 If Client-SDK was selected along with the server, this

installation will immediately follow the server installation.
 Current release – 3.50.xC3
 Includes:
– Object interface for C++
– Informix ESQL/C
– Global Language Support
– ODBC driver
– .NET provider
– Visual Studio add-ins
– OLE DB provider
– …
 JDBC driver can be installed along with the IDS server in
UNIX; must be installed separately in Windows
 For development using Visual Studio, install the Visual
Studio add-in
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Informix Client-SDK – Installation and Setup

 Setup the development environment

– In UNIX-type systems:
• INFORMIXDIR – installation directory
• PATH – add $INFORMIXDIR/bin to your PATH
• Setup the IDS server info in a sqlhosts file
– IDS server name – server to connect
– Protocol – onsoctcp
– Hostname – can also be IP address
– Service – can also be port number
– Ex. ol_svr_custom onsoctcp pnataraj-ibm 9089
– In Windows:
• Launch setnet32.exe to setup the IDS server info
Start  All Programs  IBM Informix Client-SDK 3.50 Setnet32

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IBM Data Server Client

 The IBM long-term direction

 Multiple flavors:
– IBM Data Server Driver for JDBC and SQLJ
– IBM Data Server Driver for ODBC and CLI
– IBM Data Server Driver for ODBC, CLI, and Open Source and
IBM Data Server Driver for ODBC, CLI, and .NET
– IBM Data Server Runtime Client
– IBM Data Server Client (includes all of the above)
 Current release – 9.5
 Download from the IBM Academic Initiative site by
searching for “IBM Data Server Client” or one of the other
flavors from above

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IBM Data Server Client – Installation and Setup

 Installation of IBM Data Server Client

– Extract/untar the downloaded file
– Extraction creates a directory called client
– Go to the client directory.
– On Windows: launch image/setup.exe
– On UNIX: ./db2setup
– Follow the installation wizard to finish
 Setup the environment
– In Windows, installation sets up the environment as well
– In UNIX-type systems, do the following:
• Bourne shell: . $HOME/sqllib/db2profile
• C Shell: source $HOME/sqllib/db2cshrc

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Java and IDS

 How to use IDS with Java?

– Need a JDBC driver
 IDS communication protocols: SQLI and DRDA
 JDBC drivers for IDS:
– IBM Data Server driver for JDBC and SQL/J
• Supports IDS and DB2
• Compliant with JDBC 3.0 and JDBC 4.0
• Long term direction
• Included in the IBM Data Server Client
– Informix JDBC 3.5
• Specific to IDS
• Compliant with JDBC 3.0
• Supports IDS extensibility types and user-defined types
• Requires Java JDK 1.4.2 or higher
• Included with the IDS server and Client-SDK bundle

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Informix JDBC – Installation

 Download Informix JDBC driver

– Download from the IBM Academic Initiative site or from
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/informix/tools/jdbc/
– Current release – JDBC 3.50.JC3
 Installation
– Extract/untar the downloaded file
– Execute setup.jar (JDK 1.4.2 or higher required)
java –cp setup.jar run
– In Windows, setup.jar is located in the JDBC folder
– Double-click to execute
– Follow the installation wizard to finish
– In UNIX, the Informix JDBC driver can be installed as part of the
server or Client-SDK installation

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JDBC driver - Setup

 Setup
– Assume Data Server driver in $JDBC_HOME and Informix JDBC
driver in $INFORMIXDIR/jdbc
– Add drivers to CLASSPATH environment variable
• Unix:
CLASSPATH=$JDBC_HOME/db2_db2driver_for_jdbc_sqlj/db2jcc.jar:
$INFORMIXDIR/jdbc/lib/ifxjdbc.jar:.
• Windows:
set CLASSPATH=%JDBC_HOME%\db2_db2driver_for_jdbc_sqlj\db2jcc.jar:
%INFORMIXDIR%\jdbc\lib\ifxjdbc.jar;.
 Using the drivers
– Examples programs are included with the drivers
– Look for the ‘demo’ directory underneath the Client-SDK
installation directory or individual driver installation directory
– Refer to the book “Getting Started with IDS” by Jacques Roy

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Informix with PHP

 Supported through PHP Data Object (PDO) interface

 PHP drivers for IDS:
– IBM Data Server driver (PDO_IBM)
• Included in IBM Data Server Client package as binary
• Included in Zend Core for IBM
• Open-source available at the PHP extensions community library site
– Informix-specific driver (PDO_INFORMIX)
• Included in Open Admin Tool (OAT) for IDS
• Open-source available at the PHP extensions community library site
 PHP for IDS setup
– Easiest way to setup PHP environment – install OAT
– OAT is open-source, PHP-based, GUI administration tool for IDS
– OAT includes - IBM Informix I-Connect 3.50, Apache 2.2.4, PHP
5.2.4, PDO_INFORMIX 1.1.0
– Available at http://www.openadmintool.org
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Screenshot from OAT

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Informix with PHP

 PDO_INFORMIX driver
– Stand-alone installation of the driver requires web server with
PHP setup as a prerequisite
– Download from PHP extensions community library site
– Compile source using Informix Client-SDK
 IBM Data Server driver setup
– Easiest way – install Zend Core for IBM
– Available at http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/info/zendcore/
– Includes both PDO_INFORMIX and PDO_IBM drivers
– One or both of the drivers can be enabled
– Stand-alone installation of driver is also possible
• Pre-compiled binary available in dsdriver directory, underneath the
Data Server Client install directory
• Compile source using IBM Data Server Client
 Refer to “Getting Started with IDS” book
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IDS with Ruby and Rails

 Ruby – object-oriented scripting language

 Rails – model-view-controller (MVC) for web apps
 Drivers for IDS
– IBM Data Server driver
• Supported by IBM
• Binary included in IBM Data Server Client package
• Source for IBM_DB gem available from http://rubyforge.org
– Ruby/Informix driver
• Not supported by IBM
• Source for Ruby/Informix gem available from http://rubyforge.org
– Rails/Informix driver
• Not supported by IBM
• Source for Rails/Informix gem available from http://rubyforge.org
 Refer to “Getting Started with IDS” book

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Informix and .NET

 IDS supports .NET, and legacy (ODBC and OLE DB)

drivers
– ADO.NET managed provider bridge to ODBC or OLE DB driver
– .NET provider access the database directly without bridging to
code outside the .NET framework
 Drivers for .NET
– IBM Data Server .Net provider
– Informix .NET provider
 IBM Data Server .Net provider
– Part of the IBM Data Server Client package
– Includes add-in for Visual Studio 2008 (supports 2005 and 2003)
– IBM Database Add-In for Visual Studio includes:
• IBM Database Project types
• Server Explorer
• IDS SPL Editor
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Informix and .NET

 Informix .NET provider

– Included with Informix Client-SDK package and the server
package
– Supports Visual Studio 2003 & 2005 (2008 not supported)
– Supported programming interfaces:
• Visual Basic .NET
• Visual C# .NET
• Visual J# .NET
• ASP.NET
– Main IBM Informix .NET Provider classes
• IfxConnection
• IfxCommand
• IfxDataReader
• IfxTransaction
• IfxDataAdapter

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Informix and MATLAB

 Use MATLAB to access data from Informix database

 Load data from a database into MATLAB array
 MATLAB can connect to ODBC or JDBC data sources
 Use Database Toolbox
 Setup MATLAB to use the appropriate ODBC or JDBC
driver for Informix
 MATLAB references:
– http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/toolbox/databa
se/ug/bre07n6.html
– http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/toolbox/databa
se/gs/braiey2-1.html

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IDS Administration Basics

 Open Admin Tool (OAT) for IDS

– OAT is open-source, PHP-based, GUI administration tool for IDS
– Available at http://www.openadmintool.org
– Easy way to handle most administrative tasks
– Prominent features:
• Health center
• Logs management
• Task scheduler
• Space administration
• Server administration
• Enterprise replication
• Performance analysis
• SQL toolbox
• Help

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IDS Administration Basics

 Starting and stopping IDS

– In Windows, start/stop through the services window
– In UNIX
• oninit
• onmode –ky
 Check the server
– Current status
• onstat –
– Check disk space utilization
• onstat –d
– Lists information about chunks (a piece of physical storage – a device or
a file) and dbspaces (logical grouping of physical storage)
– To add dbspaces or chunk
• onspaces

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IDS Administration Basics

 Understanding Logs
– Logging allows multiple statements in a transaction
– Logging will preserve database consistency
– Out of log space = server hang
• Add more log space
– Use OAT, or
– onparams –a –d <dbspace> -s <size in KB>
• Backup the logs and free them for reuse
– ontape
 Loading and Unloading Data
– Through SQL statements
• UNLOAD TO '/tmp/file.out' DELIMITER '|' SELECT * FROM items;
• LOAD FROM '/tmp/items.out' DELIMITER '|' INSERT INTO items;
– Execute SQL statements using dbaccess client

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Resources
 “Getting Started with IDS”, Jacques Roy.
 The Online IDS Information Center
– http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/idshelp/v115/index.jsp
– One-stop shop for IDS product documentation
– Supports book marking favorite topics, narrowing the scope to refine
searches, printing subsets of topics

 IBM Informix Library

– http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/informix/pubs/library/
– This is the library for the entire Informix family of products
– Most of the documentation is available as .pdf files

 Informix Examples Exchange

– http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/exchange/dw_category.jspa?categoryI
D=1034
– A new developerWorks Web site where you can find, rate, and submit code
examples for IBM Informix products

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Resources
 IBM Informix DeveloperWorks Technical Articles
– http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/db2/products/informix/index.html
– Premium technical resource site for DBAs and developers
– Features explained with examples/sample code
– Contributions from IBM experts as well as customers

 IBM DeveloperWorks IDS Blogs

– http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/roundrep (IDS
Replication)
– http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/gbowerman (IDS
Application Development)
– http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/idsteam (IDS Experts
Blog)

 IBM Redbooks
– http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/cgi-bin/searchsite.cgi?query=informix
– Publications developed by the IBM International Technical Support
Organization (ITSO)

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Summary

 What is IDS?
 IDS – Installation and Setup
 Client – Installation and Setup
 Java and IDS
 Informix with PHP
 Informix with Ruby and Rails
 Informix and .NET
 Informix and MATLAB
 IDS Administration Basics
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