Experience with "iReplay" tool from Exact Solution

Hi, quick questions: - Does anyone have experience with using a tool called "i= Replay" (from a company called "Exact Solutions") to capture an SQL worklo= ad of/from an Informix instance and then re-playing this workload to another Infor= mix instance ? The intended scenario would be a production enviro= nment (Informix 11.50 on Solaris Sparc) for the capture and a test envir= onment (Informix 12.10 on AIX) for the replay. - Any specifics/gotchas to watch out for ? Thanks a lot in advance, Martin Fuerderer -- Martin Fuerderer IBM Informix Development Munich, Germany Inf= ormation Management Read about the Informix Warehouse Accelerator:http://tinyurl.com/the-iwa-blog IBM Deutschland GmbH Vorsitzend= er des Aufsichtsrats: Martin Jetter Geschaeftsfuehrung: Martina Koederit= z (Vorsitzende), Susanne Peter, Norbert Janzen, Dr. Christian Keller, Iv= o Koerner, Stefan Lutz Sitz der Gesellschaft: Ehningen Registergerich= t: Amtsgericht Stuttgart, HRB 14562 WEEE-Reg.-Nr. DE 99369940 &nb= sp;

Does exactly what it says on the tin. Got me out of a few holes, and I know of at least one IBM'er that used it in anger at customer site to diag an issue. Gotcha: Fast disk and a lot of it, solaris needs a patch to capture local tcp traffic on the loopback, obviously no SHM is captured. Cheers Paul -----Original Message----- From: ids-bounces@iiug.org [mailto:ids-bounces@iiug.org] On Behalf Of Martin Fuerderer Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2017 10:13 AM To: ids@iiug.org Subject: Experience with "iReplay" tool from Exact Solu.... [39220] Hi, quick questions: - Does anyone have experience with using a tool called "i= Replay" (from a company called "Exact Solutions") to capture an SQL worklo= ad of/from an Informix instance and then re-playing this workload to another Infor= mix instance ? The intended scenario would be a production enviro= nment (Informix 11.50 on Solaris Sparc) for the capture and a test envir= onment (Informix 12.10 on AIX) for the replay. - Any specifics/gotchas to watch out for ? Thanks a lot in advance, Martin Fuerderer -- Martin Fuerderer IBM Informix Development Munich, Germany Inf= ormation Management Read about the Informix Warehouse Accelerator:http://tinyurl.com/the-iwa-blog IBM Deutschland GmbH Vorsitzend= er des Aufsichtsrats: Martin Jetter Geschaeftsfuehrung: Martina Koederit= z (Vorsitzende), Susanne Peter, Norbert Janzen, Dr. Christian Keller, Iv= o Koerner, Stefan Lutz Sitz der Gesellschaft: Ehningen Registergerich= t: Amtsgericht Stuttgart, HRB 14562 WEEE-Reg.-Nr. DE 99369940 &nb= sp; **************************************************************************** *** Forum Note: Use "Reply" to post a response in the discussion forum.

Martin, I work for West and we have been doing a lot of testing using IRePlay for the last 6 months or so. My colleague has been doing the heavy lifting for that and has agreed for me to send you his email if you have questions. Please email me direct at ddmueller@west.com Thanx, Dan -----Original Message----- From: ids-bounces@iiug.org [mailto:ids-bounces@iiug.org] On Behalf Of Martin Fuerderer Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2017 11:13 AM To: ids@iiug.org Subject: Experience with "iReplay" tool from Exact Solu.... [39220] Hi, quick questions: - Does anyone have experience with using a tool called "i= Replay" (from a company called "Exact Solutions") to capture an SQL worklo= ad of/from an Informix instance and then re-playing this workload to another Infor= mix instance ? The intended scenario would be a production enviro= nment (Informix 11.50 on Solaris Sparc) for the capture and a test envir= onment (Informix 12.10 on AIX) for the replay. - Any specifics/gotchas to watch out for ? Thanks a lot in advance, Martin Fuerderer -- Martin Fuerderer IBM Informix Development Munich, Germany Inf= ormation Management Read about the Informix Warehouse Accelerator:http://tinyurl.com/the-iwa-blog IBM Deutschland GmbH Vorsitzend= er des Aufsichtsrats: Martin Jetter Geschaeftsfuehrung: Martina Koederit= z (Vorsitzende), Susanne Peter, Norbert Janzen, Dr. Christian Keller, Iv= o Koerner, Stefan Lutz Sitz der Gesellschaft: Ehningen Registergerich= t: Amtsgericht Stuttgart, HRB 14562 WEEE-Reg.-Nr. DE 99369940 &nb= sp; ******************************************************************************* Forum Note: Use "Reply" to post a response in the discussion forum.

To add what Paul said, other gotchas: - On AIX if the transaction rate is high you need to run the capture on a separate box, preferably a small Linux box because the AIX sniffer library function misses packets above a certain level. Exact Solutions can help with the details if that applies. - If the server is high transaction rate you may want to have the capture on a separate box anyway just to get the IO off the server. But you can't capture local loopback traffic so you may have to change connections for local traffic to true network address. - The replay has to be against a database with contents that are nearly identical to the one where the data was captured. So, what you do is take an archive, start capture, restore the archive to the test system or new system, then replay the captured transactions on the replay platform to get a baseline. Then you restore again and make whatever changes you want to make - tuning, OS version, IDS version, add/drop an index, etc. - to get the timings under the new environment details to compare to the baseline. Art Art S. Kagel, President and Principal Consultant ASK Database Management www.askdbmgt.com Blog: http://informix-myview.blogspot.com/ Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that my own opinions are my own opinions and do not reflect on the IIUG, nor any other organization with which I am associated either explicitly, implicitly, or by inference. Neither do those opinions reflect those of other individuals affiliated with any entity with which I am affiliated nor those of the entities themselves. On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 10:12 AM, Martin Fuerderer <MARTINFU@de.ibm.com> wrote: > Hi, > > quick questions: > > - Does anyone have experience with using a tool called "i= Replay" > > (from a company > > called "Exact Solutions") to capture an SQL worklo= ad of/from an > > Informix instance > > and then re-playing this workload to another Infor= mix instance ? > > The intended scenario would be a production enviro= nment (Informix > > 11.50 > > on Solaris Sparc) for the capture and a test envir= onment (Informix > > 12.10 on AIX) > > for the replay. > > - Any specifics/gotchas to watch out for ? > > Thanks a lot in advance, > > Martin Fuerderer > > -- > > Martin Fuerderer > > IBM Informix Development Munich, Germany > > Inf= ormation Management > > Read about the Informix Warehouse > > Accelerator:http://tinyurl.com/the-iwa-blog > > IBM Deutschland GmbH > > Vorsitzend= er des Aufsichtsrats: Martin Jetter > > Geschaeftsfuehrung: Martina Koederit= z (Vorsitzende), Susanne Peter, > > Norbert Janzen, Dr. Christian Keller, Iv= o Koerner, Stefan Lutz > > Sitz der Gesellschaft: Ehningen > > Registergerich= t: Amtsgericht Stuttgart, HRB 14562 WEEE-Reg.-Nr. DE > > 99369940 > > &nb= sp; > > > ************************************************************ > ******************* > Forum Note: Use "Reply" to post a response in the discussion forum. > >

Get buy in from the network team, cos if they are unhelpful you are doomed as you want to use port mirroring and/or taps. Normally their domain Cheers Paul -----Original Message----- From: ids-bounces@iiug.org [mailto:ids-bounces@iiug.org] On Behalf Of Art Kagel Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2017 11:17 AM To: ids@iiug.org Subject: Re: Experience with "iReplay" tool from Exact .... [39224] To add what Paul said, other gotchas: - On AIX if the transaction rate is high you need to run the capture on a separate box, preferably a small Linux box because the AIX sniffer library function misses packets above a certain level. Exact Solutions can help with the details if that applies. - If the server is high transaction rate you may want to have the capture on a separate box anyway just to get the IO off the server. But you can't capture local loopback traffic so you may have to change connections for local traffic to true network address. - The replay has to be against a database with contents that are nearly identical to the one where the data was captured. So, what you do is take an archive, start capture, restore the archive to the test system or new system, then replay the captured transactions on the replay platform to get a baseline. Then you restore again and make whatever changes you want to make - tuning, OS version, IDS version, add/drop an index, etc. - to get the timings under the new environment details to compare to the baseline. Art Art S. Kagel, President and Principal Consultant ASK Database Management www.askdbmgt.com Blog: http://informix-myview.blogspot.com/ Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that my own opinions are my own opinions and do not reflect on the IIUG, nor any other organization with which I am associated either explicitly, implicitly, or by inference. Neither do those opinions reflect those of other individuals affiliated with any entity with which I am affiliated nor those of the entities themselves. On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 10:12 AM, Martin Fuerderer <MARTINFU@de.ibm.com> wrote: > Hi, > > quick questions: > > - Does anyone have experience with using a tool called "i= Replay" > > (from a company > > called "Exact Solutions") to capture an SQL worklo= ad of/from an > > Informix instance > > and then re-playing this workload to another Infor= mix instance ? > > The intended scenario would be a production enviro= nment (Informix > > 11.50 > > on Solaris Sparc) for the capture and a test envir= onment (Informix > > 12.10 on AIX) > > for the replay. > > - Any specifics/gotchas to watch out for ? > > Thanks a lot in advance, > > Martin Fuerderer > > -- > > Martin Fuerderer > > IBM Informix Development Munich, Germany > > Inf= ormation Management > > Read about the Informix Warehouse > > Accelerator:http://tinyurl.com/the-iwa-blog > > IBM Deutschland GmbH > > Vorsitzend= er des Aufsichtsrats: Martin Jetter > > Geschaeftsfuehrung: Martina Koederit= z (Vorsitzende), Susanne Peter, > > Norbert Janzen, Dr. Christian Keller, Iv= o Koerner, Stefan Lutz > > Sitz der Gesellschaft: Ehningen > > Registergerich= t: Amtsgericht Stuttgart, HRB 14562 WEEE-Reg.-Nr. DE > > 99369940 > > &nb= sp; > > > ************************************************************ > ******************* > Forum Note: Use "Reply" to post a response in the discussion forum. > > **************************************************************************** *** Forum Note: Use "Reply" to post a response in the discussion forum.

Thanks a lot for al= l the good advice that I received from various people! Thanks, Martin -- Martin Fuerderer IBM Informix Development Munich, Germany Inf= ormation Management IBM Deutschland GmbH Vorsitzender des Aufsich= tsrats: Martin Jetter Geschaeftsfuehrung: Martina Koederitz (Vorsitzende= ), Susanne Peter, Norbert Janzen, Dr. Christian Keller, Ivo Koerner, Ste= fan Lutz Sitz der Gesellschaft: Ehningen Registergericht: Amtsgericht= Stuttgart, HRB 14562 WEEE-Reg.-Nr. DE 99369940 ----- Original message ----- From: "Art Kagel" <ar= t.kagel@gmail.com> Sent by: ids-bounces@iiug.org To: ids@iiug.org<= br>Cc: Subject: Re: Experience with "iReplay" tool from Exact .... [3922= 4] Date: Wed, May 17, 2017 6:17 PM To add what Paul said, other gotchas: - On AIX if the transacti= on rate is high you need to run the capture on a separate box, preferabl= y a small Linux box because the AIX sniffer library function misses pack= ets above a certain level. Exact Solutions can help with the details if = that applies. - If the server is high transaction rate you may want to h= ave the capture on a separate box anyway just to get the IO off the serv= er. But you can't capture local loopback traffic so you may have to chan= ge connections for local traffic to true network address. - The repla= y has to be against a database with contents that are nearly identical t= o the one where the data was captured. So, what you do is take an archiv= e, start capture, restore the archive to the test system or new system, = then replay the captured transactions on the replay platform to get a ba= seline. Then you restore again and make whatever changes you want to mak= e - tuning, OS version, IDS version, add/drop an index, etc. - to get th= e timings under the new environment details to compare to the baseline. = Art Art S. Kagel, President and Principal Consultant ASK Data= base Management www.askdbmgt.com Blog: [1]http://informix-myview.blogspot.= com/ Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that my own opinions are my= own opinions and do not reflect on the IIUG, nor any other organization= with which I am associated either explicitly, implicitly, or by inferen= ce. Neither do those opinions reflect those of other individuals affilia= ted with any entity with which I am affiliated nor those of the entities= themselves. On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 10:12 AM, Martin Fuerderer <= MARTINFU@de.ibm.com> wrote: > Hi, > > quick que= stions: > > - Does anyone have experience with using a tool cal= led "i=3D Replay" > > (from a company > > called "E= xact Solutions") to capture an SQL worklo=3D ad of/from an > > = Informix instance > > and then re-playing this workload to anot= her Infor=3D mix instance ? > > The intended scenario would be = a production enviro=3D nment (Informix > > 11.50 > >= ; on Solaris Sparc) for the capture and a test envir=3D onment (Informix > > 12.10 on AIX) > > for the replay. > >= - Any specifics/gotchas to watch out for ? > > Thanks a lot in= advance, > > Martin Fuerderer > > -- > &g= t; Martin Fuerderer > > IBM Informix Development Munich, German= y > > Inf=3D ormation Management > > Read about the= Informix Warehouse > > Accelerator:[2]http://tinyurl.com/the-iwa-blog&n= bsp; > > IBM Deutschland GmbH > > Vorsitzend=3D er = des Aufsichtsrats: Martin Jetter > > Geschaeftsfuehrung: Martin= a Koederit=3D z (Vorsitzende), Susanne Peter, > > Norbert Janze= n, Dr. Christian Keller, Iv=3D o Koerner, Stefan Lutz > > Sitz = der Gesellschaft: Ehningen > > Registergerich=3D t: Amtsgericht= Stuttgart, HRB 14562 WEEE-Reg.-Nr. DE > > 99369940 > = > &nb=3D sp; > > > *******************************= ***************************** > ******************* > Forum Not= e: Use "Reply" to post a response in the discussion forum. > ><= br> ****************************************************************= *************** Forum Note: Use "Reply" to post a response i= n the discussion forum. References 1. 3D"http://informix=/ 2. 3D"http://tinyurl.c=/