Re: New to Informix

As someone who has dealt with Informix going on 10 years now, I will suggest that there is no alternative to taking classes offered by Informix. You cannot learn what you need to out of any book. I explain Informix to my end-users like this, Oracle is an application system that manages databases, Informix is more like a second-level operating system. While this might not be strictly true, it gets across the idea of the complexity. Also, depending upon the size and complexity of your databases, the DBA function is not a part-time job for someone. John Welch wrote: > Hello all, > My company recently purchased an Enterprise software package which > has IDS 7.x (sorry I don't know the exact version) as the backend > database. The current version of the software that we will be > installing is written in Informix 4GL. We are moving from a highly > customized software package that was written in ProvideX Business > Basic and does not contain a backend RDBMS. Myself and other memebers > of the IS department have very little experience with databases in > general, and no experience with Informix at all. However, we are > going to be a big part of a team that implements this new software > package, and will eventually administer the database and may even do > some development work. > I was wondering if anybody could point me in the right direction as > far as reference material on Informix (i.e. books, magazines, web > sites, etc.). Also, I have been looking into the training offered by > Informix. Can anybody share any experiences with these classes? > Should I look to any outside sources for training? I notice that many > of the classes mention IDS.2000. Would these classes still be > benefitial to me even though I am running version 7.x? > Any information that anybody could pass along would be greatly > appreciated. > > Thank you in advance. > > John Welch > Systems Analyst > Brockway-Smith Co.

"Doug McAllister" <doug.mcallister@nospam.fmr.com> wrote: > As someone who has dealt with Informix going on 10 years now, I will > suggest that there is no alternative to taking classes offered by > Informix. You cannot learn what you need to out of any book. I explain > Informix to my end-users like this, Oracle is an application system that > manages databases, Informix is more like a second-level operating system. > While this might not be strictly true, it gets across the idea of the > complexity. > Also, depending upon the size and complexity of your databases, the DBA > function is not a part-time job for someone. I've worked with Informix products (server and 4gl) for nine years at an installation with four networked computers, each with its own Informix server, and a total 100 Gb of data in about 1000 tables. I was the part-time DBA for the system (admittedly this was easier because there were only two or three developers at any one time, one of whom was me). I learned everything by reading the manuals; I never read a book or took a course; I had no prior experience. I also have worked with Oracle to a small degree, and I didn't find setting up an Oracle system to be any easier than setting up an Informix one. Setting up the server may have been a bit easier, but setting up the tools was harder so it balanced out. The most important thing that I found was to realize that you don't need to know everything. Informix is chock-a-block with capabilities; just read an overview of them, figure out how you want your site set up, and then choose the ones that are relevant to you and don't learn the others. You should be able to skip approximately 70% of the manual set by doing this. If you want to become an Informix Certified Whatzis this won't work, but if you just want to run a site it should. YMMV.