Informix and Lawson

I am currently doing DBA work for a company running Lawson Financials. This is my first experiance with Lawson. It seems that all of the table design and layout functions (ie. extents, dbspaces, indexes, etc) are done from with Lawson instead of using the Informix utillities. From what I have been told, this is the way it must be done due to Lawson's data dictionary. Is this true, or is there a way to allow me to administer the database independently of Lawson? ___________________________________________________________ Jay Aymond Community Coffee jaymond@communitycoffee.com

Well, it depends what you mean by "administer". I define all my Informix tables, even customised and site-specific ones, through the Lawson dictionary and allow it to build/alter the tables as and when necessary. For this to work it is necessary to have used dbdef to define all your application dbspaces. I have separate dbspaces for AR, AP and GL plus our customised system codes, and use a default dbspace for the others. But in terms of back-ups, defragmentation, allocating extents etc. I use the Informix untilities because they're far quicker. Basically, any admin that Lawson wants to do it will do by unloading the relevant table, dropping it, re-creating it in the new form and re-loading. On large tables (and boy, do these tables get large!) this can be unmanageably slow. So, keep the Lawson dictionary and Informix schema in step and your life will be easier. The utility verifyifx7 is invaluable in this area. Some of us with an interest in this area have had formed a mailing list. It's address is lawson-sig@iiug.org Oh, and Good Luck! Neil Truby Londis (Stores) limited Hampton Hill, UK Jay Aymond wrote in message <3824f553.1719858@netnews.worldnet.att.net>... >I am currently doing DBA work for a company running Lawson Financials. This is >my first experiance with Lawson. > >It seems that all of the table design and layout functions (ie. extents, >dbspaces, indexes, etc) are done from with Lawson instead of using the Informix >utillities. From what I have been told, this is the way it must be done due to >Lawson's data dictionary. Is this true, or is there a way to allow me to >administer the database independently of Lawson? > > >___________________________________________________________ >Jay Aymond >Community Coffee >jaymond@communitycoffee.com

Jay Aymond wrote: > > I am currently doing DBA work for a company running Lawson Financials. This is > my first experiance with Lawson. > Congrats! > It seems that all of the table design and layout functions (ie. extents, > dbspaces, indexes, etc) are done from with Lawson instead of using the Informix > utillities. From what I have been told, this is the way it must be done due to > Lawson's data dictionary. Is this true, or is there a way to allow me to > administer the database independently of Lawson? > Well, it depends on who you talk to. Use of Lawson's dbreorg is required for certain maintenance upgrades and new installations. Other than that, I hardly ever use Lawson's DBA tools. As I have a decent size database 'outside' of Lawson, I use native Informix to handle all the administrative stuff. (And I tend to try to get around the dbreorg required usage as well. As a matter of fact, there's a way to get around the dbreorg for the basic maintenance as well, provided that the data definitions don't change (like moving a table from one dbspace to another). Lawson COE published it on their website a bit ago. John Carlson Informix DBA WHSmith USA > ___________________________________________________________ > Jay Aymond > Community Coffee > jaymond@communitycoffee.com