What's New in Version 11.50.xC6 of IBM Informix Dynamic Server

IBM Informix Dynamic Server, Version 11.50.xC6 contains the following new functionality:

Administration
External Backups on RS Secondary Servers
Dynamically Start, Stop, or Restart Listen Threads
SQL Administration API Portal: Arguments by Functional Categories
Connection Manager Proxy Support
View Event Alarms in the Scheduler
Improved Transaction Information
Enhancements to the OpenAdmin Tool for IDS
Enhancements to the Schema Manager plug-in for the OpenAdmin Tool for IDS

Application Development
Enhancements to Merging Information into a Target Table with the MERGE Statement
An ALTER FRAGMENT Operation Can Now Force Out Transactions to Get Exclusive Access to Tables
RETAINUPDATELOCKS Environment Option
New Column Size Field Format for CDC Records

Enterprise Replication
Enhancements to the Enterprise Replication plug-in for the OpenAdmin Tool for IDS
Enable or Disable Enterprise Replication Event Alarms

High-availability
XA Transaction Support for Updatable Secondary Servers in a High-availability Cluster

Installation
Deploying Instances with the Deployment Utility
Installing IDS by Using an RPM package (Linux)

Migration
Migrating or Upgrading High-availability Clusters
Upgrading to a New Server or Fix pack
Quickly Reverting to Your Source Server After a Failed Upgrade

Performance
Light Scans on Tables
Process Multiple Basic Text Search Queries Simultaneously

Warehousing
Load and Unload Data with External Tables
External Backups on RS Secondary Servers

To reduce the processing load on the primary server in a high-availability cluster you can create an external backup on an RS secondary server instead of on the primary server. The RS secondary server must not contain any non-logged objects. You can restore the backup on any server in the cluster.

This feature is documented in the IBM Informix Dynamic Server Administrator's Reference, the IBM Informix Backup and Restore Guide, and the IBM Informix Dynamic Server Administrator's Guide.
Dynamically Start, Stop, or Restart Listen Threads

You can now dynamically start, stop, or restart (stop and start) an existing listen thread for a SOCTCP or TLITCP network protocol without interrupting existing connections. Use the new onmode -P commands or the new SQL administration API admin() or task() functions.

This information is documented in the IBM Informix Dynamic Server Administrator's Reference and the IBM Informix Dynamic Server Administrator's Guide.
SQL Administration API Portal: Arguments by Functional Categories

You can view admin() and task() function arguments, listed by category, and follow the links to information about the arguments.

This information is documented in the IBM Informix Dynamic Server Administrator's Reference.
Connection Manager Proxy Support

Connection Manager can now be configured as a proxy server when clients connect to Informix data servers from outside a firewall. You can use proxy names when you configure high-availability cluster connections using the Connection Manager.

This information is documented in the IBM Informix Dynamic Server Administrator's Reference and the IBM Informix Dynamic Server Administrator's Guide.
View Event Alarms in the Scheduler

You can see event alarms in the ph_alerts table in the sysadmin database. You can query the ph_alert table on a local or remote server to view the recent event alarms for that server.

This feature is documented in the IBM Informix Dynamic Server Administrator's Reference.
Improved Transaction Information

The onstat -x utility output now provides an estimated rollback time for transactions that are rolling back.

The onstat -x utility is documented in the IBM Informix Dynamic Server Administrator's Reference.
Enhancements to the OpenAdmin Tool for IDS

The OpenAdmin Tool (OAT) Version 2.27 has the following enhancements:
The OAT user interface is available in multiple languages: Czech, Brazilian Portuguese, English, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Slovak, Spanish, and Traditional Chinese. Earlier versions were available only in English. Note that OAT supports viewing and modifying data only in databases with the U.S. English locale. For example, if you access a database with an Italian or a Japanese locale, the data might not appear accurately.
On the High Availability Clusters page (MACH), you can configure the Connection Manager as a proxy server when clients connect to Informix data servers from outside a firewall.
You can display performance and status information for a database server by using the onstat utility in OAT.

See the OpenAdmin Tool help for more information.
Enhancements to the Schema Manager plug-in for the OpenAdmin Tool for IDS

The Schema Manager plug-in Version 1.2 has the following enhancements:
You can create tables and define the attributes necessary to make the tables fully functional.
You can drop or truncate tables.
You can load and unload data from a source that is external to the database server by using external tables. You can create an external table that has the same schema as the database table, or use a previously defined external table.

See the Schema Manager plug-in for OAT help, for more information.
Enhancements to Merging Information into a Target Table with the MERGE Statement

You can remove rows from a target table when you are merging information into it from a source table by using the Delete clause in the MERGE statement. You can combine the Delete clause and the Insert clause to add new rows to the target table if they do not match the join condition, and delete the rows that do match the join condition.

You can use an external table, created by the CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE statement, as a source table in the MERGE statement. You can use a table protected by LBAC as a source or target table in a MERGE statement.

You can include savepoints in a transaction to preserve the effects of the MERGE statement after a partial rollback.

You can specify a more selective join predicate because you no longer need to include an equality condition.

The MERGE statement is documented in the IBM Informix Guide to SQL: Syntax and the IBM Informix Guide to SQL: Tutorial.
An ALTER FRAGMENT Operation Can Now Force Out Transactions to Get Exclusive Access to Tables

The ALTER FRAGMENT operation requires exclusive access and exclusive locks on all the tables involved in the operation. Now a DBA can force out other transactions that opened or locked the tables involved in an ALTER FRAGMENT ON TABLE operation. When the FORCE_DDL_EXEC environment option is enabled, the ALTER FRAGMENT ON TABLE operation waits to get exclusive access to the table, as specified by the lock mode wait value. If necessary, the server rolls back the transactions that have access or locks on the tables involved in the operation until the timeout value of the FORCE_DDL_EXEC environment option is reached.

The feature is documented in the IBM Informix Guide to SQL: Syntax.
RETAINUPDATELOCKS Environment Option

The RETAINUPDATELOCKS environment option can improve concurrency in Dynamic SQL applications that include the SELECT . . . FOR UPDATE statement. When your session uses the Committed Read, Dirty Read, or Cursor Stability isolation levels, you can set this option to instruct the database server to postpone releasing update locks until a transaction ends. Retaining update locks prevents users in other sessions from locking rows that you have not yet updated. By default the setting persists for the current session unless you reset it or you change the isolation level to one that does not support the RETAINUPDATELOCKS environment option.

The feature is documented in the IBM Informix Guide to SQL: Syntax.
New Column Size Field Format for CDC Records

The CDC_REC_DELETE, CDC_REC_INSERT, CDC_REC_UPDAFT, and CDC_REC_UPDBEF records have fields listing the size of each variable-length column in the row, if any. The column size fields in these CDC records are now 4 bytes long and in network, big-endian, order. Previously, the column size fields were the size of the operating system platform's integer byte length, in native byte order. To use the new column size field format, when you run the cdc_opensess() function, specify 1 as the value for both the major_version and minor_version arguments.

This feature is documented in the IBM Informix Change Data Capture Programmer's Guide.
Enhancements to the Enterprise Replication plug-in for the OpenAdmin Tool for IDS

The Enterprise Replication (ER) plug-in Version 2.4 has the following enhancements:
You can improve the performance of the consistency check and synchronization tasks for replicates and replicate sets. You can limit the amount of data to check to the rows updated since a specified time. For replicates, you can also specify a subset of a table to check with a WHERE clause. For replicate sets, you can process the replicates in a replicate set in parallel.
You can delete information about completed check and synchronization tasks from the OAT display.
You can delete ER objects including servers, replicates, replicate sets, and templates.
You can instantiate an ER template on multiple servers at the same time. In previous releases, a template was instantiated on one server at a time.
You can change the master replicate server for a replicate. In previous releases, the master replicate server could not be changed.
The wizard for checking and synchronizing replicate sets and replicates is updated to improve usability.

See the Enterprise Replication plug-in for OAT help, for more information.
Enable or Disable Enterprise Replication Event Alarms

You can control which Enterprise Replication event alarms are enabled by setting the CDR_ALARMS environment variable with the CDR_ENV configuration parameter. By default, most Enterprise Replication event alarms are enabled. The state change events 49, and 51 through 70, which indicate that a cdr command was run, are disabled by default.

This feature is documented in the IBM Informix Dynamic Server Enterprise Replication Guide.
XA Transaction Support for Updatable Secondary Servers in a High-availability Cluster

Client applications that connect to updatable secondaries in a high-availability cluster can use XA transactions. Previously, only client applications connected to primary servers could use XA transactions.

This feature is documented in the IBM Informix Dynamic Server Administrator's Reference and the IBM Informix Migration Guide.
Deploying Instances with the Deployment Utility

You can use the deployment utility (ifxdeploy) to rapidly deploy a configured IDS instance to multiple computers, avoiding the need to manually configure instances on each computer and wait for each instance to initialize. By setting configuration parameters, essential environment variables, and SQLHOST connectivity information in a deployment utility configuration file (ifxdeploy.conf) template, you can reuse the configuration file to deploy the instance multiple times. If you are deploying an instance with existing data, you can use the -relocate option to store the data in a different location from where it was originally stored. You can call the utility programmatically or from a script as part of an application installation that embeds IDS. The utility automatically extracts tar files that are compressed with Gzip.

This feature is documented in the IBM Informix Dynamic Server Installation Guide for UNIX, Linux, and Mac OS X.
Installing IDS by Using an RPM package (Linux)

You can install IBM Informix products by using RPM Package Manager (RPM) on some Linux® operating systems (see the Machine Notes for the list of operating systems). RPM simplifies installation by installing the product from a single package, and tracks the packages that are installed on a system. By default, this method installs IDS in the /opt/IBM/informix directory.

This information is documented in the IBM Informix Dynamic Server Installation Guide for UNIX, Linux, and Mac OS X.
Migrating or Upgrading High-availability Clusters

Information was added to the Migration Guide to help you coordinate the migration of all servers in a high-availability cluster. If you use high-availability clusters, refer to this information when you upgrade to a new PID or fix pack, migrate to a new version of IDS, or revert to the previous version of IDS if necessary.
Upgrading to a New Server or Fix pack

To upgrade to a new IDS version or fix pack, follow the procedures that are described in the IBM Informix Migration Guide. Likewise, to revert to the prior version of the server after successfully upgrading, follow the reversion procedures that are described in the IBM Informix Migration Guide.
Quickly Reverting to Your Source Server After a Failed Upgrade

If an upgrade to a new IDS version or fix pack fails, use the new onrestorept utility to restore the server to a consistent, pre-upgrade state. You can undo changes made during the upgrade in minutes (and in some cases, in seconds). Previously, if a fix pack upgrade failed, you had to restore the database by using a level-0 archive.

The new CONVERSION_GUARD and RESTORE_POINT_DIR configuration parameters specify information that the onrestorept utility can use if an upgrade fails.

The onrestorept utility is documented in the IBM Informix Migration Guide. and the new configuration parameters are documented in the IBM Informix Dynamic Server Administrator's Reference.
Light Scans on Tables

You can now enable IDS to perform light scans on compressed tables, tables with rows that are larger than a page, and tables with any data, including VARCHAR, LVARCHAR, and NVARCHAR data. The server does not scan pieces of a row (such as smart large objects) that are stored outside of the row.

To enable light scans, set the BATCHEDREAD_TABLE configuration parameter to 1. You can also use the IFX_BATCHEDREAD_TABLE environment option of the SET ENVIRONMENT statement to change the value of the BATCHEDREAD_TABLE configuration parameter for a session.

To display scan information, use the new onstat -g scn command. This command supersedes the onstat -g lsc command.

This feature is documented in the IBM Informix Dynamic Server Administrator's Reference and the IBM Informix Performance Guide.
Process Multiple Basic Text Search Queries Simultaneously

If basic text search queries are slow because multiple users are running queries at the same time, you can add more BTS virtual processors so that queries run simultaneously, each in its own virtual processor. Previously, you could only create one BTS virtual processor and queries ran serially.

This feature is documented in the IBM Informix Database Extensions User's Guide.
Load and Unload Data with External Tables

IDS supports external tables. You can read and write from a source that is external to the database server. External tables provide an SQL interface to data in text files managed by the operating system or to data from a FIFO device. To create external tables, use the CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE statement. Use the existing DROP TABLE statement to drop an external table.

This feature is documented in the IBM Informix Guide to SQL: Syntax and IBM Informix Dynamic Server Administrator's Guide.