Insider #68: Highlights: Ambuj Goyal addresses the IIUG membership, The Baan benchmark

IIUG Insider (Issue #68) February 2006 Highlights: Ambuj Goyal addresses the IIUG membership, The Baan benchmark Welcome to the International Informix Users Group (IIUG) Insider! Designed for IIUG members and Informix user group leaders, this publication contains timely and relevant information for the IBM Informix community. Contents: * Editorial * Highlights * Ambuj Goyal addresses the IIUG membership * The Baan benchmark * Conference corner * IIUG/IDUG NA Conference, Tampa May 7-11, 2006 * IIUG/IDUG Europe Conference Rome, October 9-13, 2006 * IIUG Board of Directors corner * Announcing the new Informix forum * Report of the San Diego board meeting * Results of our EMEA survey * Education * Chat with the lab * Get a Fast Start on Training with $500 saving on IBM public classes * Developer corner * Binary PHP PDO Driver for Informix available for Windows * Class::DBI::Informix * What's new on developerworks * Informix in the press * Calendar of events * Useful links * Closing and credits ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Editorial ----------------------------------------------------------------------- As you can see I have slightly changed the format of the Insider. It is now more structured and from now on you can expect to find content in the same place saving you time reaching to the topics that interest you. We will try to supply information from IBM management, Success stories and benchmarks demonstrating that Informix is not only alive but growing. As always I am requesting that you send me your own success stories, your thoughts, your suggestions and your requests. Participate in the IIUG Insider and help us make it a better newsletter. Gary Ben-Israel IIUG Insider Editor IIUG Board of Directors gary@iiug.org ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Highlights ----------------------------------------------------------------------- AMBUJ GOYAL ADDRESSES THE IIUG MEMBESHIP Office of the General Manager Information Management Software Route 100 Somers, NY 10589 February 2, 2006 Dear IIUG Members, I wanted to take this opportunity to give you an update on IBM's strategic direction for Informix® software. Your existing Informix database software investments will be extended in future releases. IBM is fully committed to the Informix platform, and we are backing up that commitment by investing to support and enhance the Informix software portfolio as technology evolves. We are basing this investment on the positive feedback we've received from Informix end users, our business partners, and the analyst community. A proof point of that commitment was the release of Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) Version 10.0 last year. In addition, we launched a new product IDS Express v10 in to the market place. We have built superior feature and function enhancements into IDS v10. It.s the fastest, most reliable and most scalable IDS database ever. In short, IDS is a strategic full featured pure OLTP data server. Delivering high quality IT services today is harder than ever; requiring development and management of highly complex systems. IBM is simplifying this task for our Informix customers by providing a broad spectrum of industry-leading business integration, systems management, collaboration, application development and information management software that is integrated and certified with Informix products. The current Informix enhancement plan outlines product strategy through the year 2011. Looking at a five year view is consistent with other IBM software products. We will continue to share with you Informix enhancements plans in a five year window going forward. The current plan includes work on the future version of Informix Dynamic Server (IDS), the follow on to the currently available IDS V10 product. One of the keys to our strategy is R&D investment for integrating Informix across the IBM software portfolio -- Lotus, Rational, Tivoli, WebSphere, and, of course, IBM Information Management software. We've based this strategy on what you've been telling us. We understand that your business relies on Informix solutions to achieve Information On Demand. As a result, IBM will continue to support the worldwide ecosystem of Informix application providers, solution providers and resellers. And you'll continue to enjoy the flexibility of running Informix on your choice of hardware and operating system platforms. IBM has the largest R&D organization in the world. Since Informix software became part of the IBM family, IBM R&D has delivered significant improvements to Informix's overall capabilities. IBM's depth of innovation, superior service and support, solutions integration, adherence to standards, strong business partnerships, and solution value remains unmatched. I am personally committed to the success of your business, and to delivering the best available technology to support your current IT investment. For more information and details on Informix (IDS) please visit our website at http://www.ibm.com/informix. Thank you for continuing to work with IBM. We will keep working hard to deliver you leading edge technology in support of your business objectives. Sincerely, Ambuj Goyal General Manager, Information Management Software IBM Software Group THE BAAN BENCHMARK Performance of SSA Baan IVc4 and Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) V10.0 was consistently strong across a range of servers, in current benchmark tests. An impressive 4441 BRU (1) was attained during the benchmark with the 4 CPU model of an HP IntegrityTM RX4640 server (1.6 GHz). This measurement exceeds predicted capacity of Baan IVc4 on the same system, with a different competitive database, as well as measured performance of Baan IVc4 with previous versions of Informix Dynamic Server. Results of the benchmark on various 2 CPU models of the HP Integrity server displayed the same powerful trend. SSA Baan offers the rich functionality that discrete manufacturers need to optimize their core internal processes and transactions, from planning and manufacturing to warehouse management and accounting. It's dynamic, integrated enterprise modeling capabilities make it easy to configure SSA Baan ERP to fit particular business functions, processes and organizational structure -providing value without waste. IBM Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) V10.0 offers outstanding online transaction processing (OLTP) database performance while helping customers simplify and automate many of the tasks associated with deploying enterprise databases. IDS V10.0 contains features that speed application development, increase performance, improve data security, make replication more robust, and further ease the burden of database administration. Organizations can now free up skilled database administrator (DBA) resources and leverage their existing investment to focus on next-generation enterprise applications. The IBM and SSA Global Technologies Strategic Alliance leverages the assets of the two companies to afford small to very large organizations "enterprise-strength" solutions. Together, we can help reduce the overall cost of doing business - with no compromises. (1) A BRU (Benchmark Reference User) represents a single user executing a session that generates a load on the system. By relating all SSA ERPLN sessions to that refe

The current IIUG newsletter is really interesting and shows some valuable progress regarding Informix marketing. This is good and encouraging news. It approves that IBM is listening to our criticism. I also noticed that the "DB2 Information Mangement Graphic" has been removed from the official IBM/Informix website (http://www.ibm.com/informix). Perfect. I updated the Informix marketing request list to reflect the progress IBM made regarding Informix marketing: http://www.herber-consulting.de/cgi-bin/IfxMarkReq.pl I added a few notes to some of the topics in the IIUG newsletter below. emailer@iiug.org wrote: > IIUG Insider (Issue #68) > February 2006 > * Ambuj Goyal addresses the IIUG membership This letter from Ambuj Goyal is really welcome. However it would even be more valuable if the letter will be published on the official IBM/Informix website too. The goal is to acquire new Informix customers, so this statement should not be limited to the eyes of the Informix community only. > * The Baan benchmark This benchmark result should also be published on the official IBM/Informix website too, not limited to the eyes of the Informix community only. It would be advisable to mention the competition database in the PDF document in order to see against whom IDS performed better. A press notice about the benchmark result is necessary. > * IIUG/IDUG Europe Conference Rome, October 9-13, 2006 Great news for europeans -:) > * Announcing the new Informix forum Good to see that the IIUG is listening to the criticism and has realized that the Informix brand needs to be renewed. > * Report of the San Diego board meeting Encouraging news. Looking forward to the publishing of the promised facts about Informix on it's way to be a leading database. > * Developer corner > * Binary PHP PDO Driver for Informix available for Windows > * Class::DBI::Informix > * What's new on developerworks Script languages are getting more and more attention. The available database interfaces for connecting PHP, Perl and Python are important. IBM should develop some self training courses about connecting those powerful languages with IDS. The bracing new article about the Google Maps API, PHP and IDS from Martie Lurie on developerWorks is a good start: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/db2/library/techarticle/dm-0602lurie > * Informix in the press This really needs some improvement from IBM. Searching for "informix" under news.google.com is still frustrating and shows this major deficiency. > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > Editorial > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > > As you can see I have slightly changed the format of the Insider. It is > now more structured and from now on you can expect to find content in the > same place saving you time reaching to the topics that interest you. We > will try to supply information from IBM management, Success stories and > benchmarks demonstrating that Informix is not only alive but growing. As > always I am requesting that you send me your own success stories, your > thoughts, your suggestions and your requests. > > Participate in the IIUG Insider and help us make it a better newsletter. > > Gary Ben-Israel > IIUG Insider Editor > IIUG Board of Directors > gary@iiug.org > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > Highlights > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > AMBUJ GOYAL ADDRESSES THE IIUG MEMBESHIP > > > Office of the General Manager > Information Management Software > Route 100 > Somers, NY 10589 > > February 2, 2006 > > Dear IIUG Members, > > I wanted to take this opportunity to give you an update on IBM's strategic > direction for Informix® software. > > Your existing Informix database software investments will be extended in > future releases. IBM is fully committed to the Informix platform, and we > are backing up that commitment by investing to support and enhance the > Informix software portfolio as technology evolves. We are basing this > investment on the positive feedback we've received from Informix end > users, our business partners, and the analyst community. > > A proof point of that commitment was the release of Informix Dynamic > Server (IDS) Version 10.0 last year. In addition, we launched a new > product IDS Express v10 in to the market place. We have built superior > feature and function enhancements into IDS v10. It.s the fastest, most > reliable and most scalable IDS database ever. In short, IDS is a strategic > full featured pure OLTP data server. > > Delivering high quality IT services today is harder than ever; requiring > development and management of highly complex systems. IBM is simplifying > this task for our Informix customers by providing a broad spectrum of > industry-leading business integration, systems management, collaboration, > application development and information management software that is > integrated and certified with Informix products. > > The current Informix enhancement plan outlines product strategy through > the year 2011. Looking at a five year view is consistent with other IBM > software products. We will continue to share with you Informix > enhancements plans in a five year window going forward. The current plan > includes work on the future version of Informix Dynamic Server (IDS), the > follow on to the currently available IDS V10 product. One of the keys to > our strategy is R&D investment for integrating Informix across the IBM > software portfolio -- Lotus, Rational, Tivoli, WebSphere, and, of course, > IBM Information Management software. > > We've based this strategy on what you've been telling us. We understand > that your business relies on Informix solutions to achieve Information On > Demand. As a result, IBM will continue to support the worldwide ecosystem > of Informix application providers, solution providers and resellers. And > you'll continue to enjoy the flexibility of running Informix on your > choice of hardware and operating system platforms. > > IBM has the largest R&D organization in the world. Since Informix software > became part of the IBM family, IBM R&D has delivered significant > improvements to Informix's overall capabilities. IBM's depth of > innovation, superior service and support, solutions integration, adherence > to standards, strong business partnerships, and solution value remains > unmatched. I am personally committed to the success of your business, and > to delivering the best available technology to support your current IT > investment. > > For more information and details on Informix (IDS) please visit our > website at http://www.ibm.com/informix. > > Thank you for continuing to work with IBM. We will keep working hard to > deliver you leading edge technology in support of your business > objectives. > > Sincerely, > > Ambuj Goyal > General Manager, Information Management Software > IBM Software

Eric Herber wrote: >> * The Baan benchmark > > This benchmark result should also be published on the official > IBM/Informix website too, not limited to the eyes of the > Informix community only. > It would be advisable to mention the competition database in > the PDF document in order to see against whom IDS performed > better. > A press notice about the benchmark result is necessary. > Just noticed that the benchmark result has been published on the official IBM/Informix website: http://www.ibm.com/software/data/informix/ Right corner "Highlights" ("IDS posts strong results in benchmark...").