This appendix discusses multiple residency. Multiple residency refers to multiple database servers and their associated shared memory and disk structures coexisting on a single computer.
Creating multiple independent database server environments on the same computer allows you to:
You can separate production and development environments to protect the production system from the unpredictable nature of the development environment.
You can isolate applications or databases that are critically important, either to increase security or to accommodate more frequent backups than most databases require.
When you use multiple residency, each database server has its own configuration file. Thus, you can create a configuration file for each database server that meets its special requirements for backups, shared-memory use, and tuning priorities.
If you are developing an application for use on a network, you can use local loopback to perform your distributed-data simulation and testing on a single computer. (See the section on using a local loopback connection in the IBM Informix: Dynamic Server Administrator's Guide.) Later, when a network is ready, you can use the application without changes to application source code.