Interesting stuff. Was there any talk of offering fixpaks (IBM terminology)
for IDS 7.x and 9.x? It annoys me that for DB/2 I get e-mail alerts of
customer support issues. I can go onto the website and check on the status
of all the bugs and fixes in DB/2 and every so often a new fixpak will
appear which I can download to include all the various bugfixes (DB/2 V8.1
is up to FP5 and v7 up to FP11). Why after all this time do we not have the
same thing for IDS?

Checkout these links for details:-

http://www.ibm.com/cgi-bin/db2www/da...ort/db2alert.d
2w/report
http://www-306.ibm.com/cgi-bin/db2ww...support/downlo
ad.d2w/report


David.
-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Hamm [mailto:ahamm@mail.com]
Sent: 07 April 2004 08:04
To: informix-list@iiug.org
Subject: An interesting meeting with IBM


Folks,

Yesterday we had an interesting techo/positioning meeting with some IBM
staff. The attendees were nearly all locals (Australia) excepting a
representative of the IDS development team from US. The IBM'ers were a mix
of techies, managers and supply chain staff; from both sides of the
aquisition (ie some were long-term Informix, some long-term IBMers)

These IBM Informix presentations have been targeted at the top 100 Informix
partners globally. 10 of these were based in the Asia/Pacific region. I
think meeting with 100 partners was just an arbitrary limit of practicality.
Hopefully this posting will share a lot of details with the smaller players.
I'd also like to hear any alternative perspectives from anyone else who has
sat though one of these meetings.

The meeting predominately discussed IDS and DB/2, WebSphere and 4GL, and a
small admission of slackness with Informix positioning (!) and recent supply
issues. I don't believe there are any trade secrets in here, although I
suppose some points could be exploited by rabid members of other DB
suppliers. Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone; for example,
before someone from Oracle can gloat about the words here regarding ease of
admin of DB/2, they need to consider the cost of administering Oracle...

This posting is largely based on our internal note-taking which has been
passed around. I'm posting it in the hope that it will help to strengthen
the Informix community.


** Engine, General info

- IBM welcomes working with partners with regards to feature requests, and
the possibility of implementing these into future releases.

- Defect Backlog has dropped to about 15% of the count just prior to the
takeover [15% is my guess from the graphs and numbers tossed into the air].
Note that the peak of defects around 2002 was partly due to the very major
work that was required to create the Universal Server features (UDT,
datablades, etc)

- All customers are very strongly encouraged to upgrade to the latest
versions due to the major reduction in the Defect Backlog

- IDS development staff have been given a large increase of resources.

- IBM afforded the purchase of a very large testing machine farm, so that
testing now applies 60,000 tests on 9 different platforms within a week; a
task that used to take 3 months (only on Solaris) prior to IBM. These 9
platforms are now teir 1 platforms, as opposed to the older model: Solaris,
then 5 teir-one's, then the strays....

- The tests are applied across enough machines to ensure that virtually
every test is applied overnight. The tests are striped around the machines
so that each machine applies all tests within the week.

- With the nightly tests, if a new piece of code is checked in that affects
performance by as little as 1% in some area, it will be automatically
flagged for follow-up the next day.

- IBM policy demands that no release is made if there are any level 1 and
level 2 severity defects. Sign-off will not be granted unless this can be
proved.

- IDS has a development plan that takes it to version 9.8 in 2008; beyond
that, nobody plans any further ahead...

- Development of new features in IDS has accelerated (approx 40%?) since IBM

- Uptake of the 9.40 engine has been the fastest ever, for any upgrade ever
released

- Approx 50% of all 9.40 deliveries has been for Linux.

- IDS has received a lot of code from DB/2. For example, in 9.4, the GLS
system was revamped with UNICODE source taken directly from DB/2

- Multi-level security will be brought in from DB/2.

- IDS will be progressively enhanced so that it integrates very tightly with
the entire IBM product line; eg Tivoli, Websphere and other products I'm
only dimly aware of. "Software Group Integration" ???. If another product
applies SQL's that are not handled vvery well with IDS, then either IDS or
the product or both will be optimised.

- IDS is giving a lot of source code to DB/2. For example, HDR code is being
added to DB/2 instead of re-inventing it.

- Both engine teams are sharing optimiser ideas.

- IBM is striving to emulate the simplicity and ease of administration that
IDS has. By 2008 they plan to make DB/2 as easy to manage as IDS.


** Planned IDS 9.50 Features

- Further improvements to "Safety" and HDR (ease of use in particular)

- Further improvements to increase availability (ie during admin)

- Autonomic admin (eg self-repair of tables with excessive extent
fragmentation, automatic update stats)

- Integration into IBM toolset

- Multilevel Security (sourced from DB/2 as recently released in v.8)

- Faster restarts

- Table level Point-in-time restores

- Query/SQL plan tracing tools

- Backup/Restore (??? what does this mean?)

- Native .NET driver

- MS Visual Studio integration

- Java 3.0 (JDBC) compliance. This requires quite a number of added features
just to be able to achieve full JDBC compliance.

- XML Shredding / Publishing. XML will be storable efficiently, and
Xsearches will be optimised and efficient.

- Web portal / sphere integration (certified release)

- SQL standards compliance

- ESQL/C to DRDA integration (i.e. re DB2)

- DRDA integration within IDS server (fully integrated by IDS 9.6)

- Transaction / 2-Phase commits for MQ series

- Better Tivoli integration, possibly with a bundle of "Tivoli Lite" to
replace ISM

- Encryption - down to column level.

- Variable PAGE size upon initialization - 2k, 4k, 8k, 16k or 32k.

- Default roles for users

- Single user admin mode which allows access to data via SQL for privileged
user.

- Rename dbspace (this is in 9.4.UC3)

- Better role separation re DB admin

- Truncate table (Jonathan, did we win after-all on the logging issue?)

- Optimizer improvements query plans (i.e. 9.40 was optimized more for OLTP)

- Greater SHMEM

- Extensibility in UDR's, including multi-engine use

- Refined installation, allowing to only install components of the server,
i.e. reducing foot-print of install.

- Improved admin tools with more alerts and alarms


** Planned IDS 9.60 features (2007)

- Any customer/partner requests

- Improved "safety"

- DB/2 interoperability - engine to engine and more shared syntax and
features

- Complete certification of integration with IBM product line

- Better embeddability - ie ability to inject a tailored install of IDS into
an Application install, effectively allowing developers to shrink-wrap the
engine with the application.


** Planned IDS 9.70 features (2008)

- Any customer/partner requests

- Getting vaguer now...

- At this time, they hope that DB/2 will be cabable to be installed as an
upgrade of IDS in a process that is as simple as upgrading IDS versions.


** IDS after that

- The forecast is now too far into the future to make any sensible plans.


** WebSphere

- v5.1.2 includes a 95% port of 4GL syntax into WebSphere.

- v5.1.2 is not considered quite complete enough to go into production with
real 4GL code. v6 is expected to be complete enough for deployment.

- WebSphere 4GL will be an enhanced 4GL that adds user interface features.

- It's not clear, but it appears that the user interface statements of 4GL
have been replaced, and some sort of migration process must be applied to
the code to get it across.

- WebSphere can apparently run COBOL natively too, and links to several
databases, web servers and other products.


** Negligence (my words) of Informix Positioning:

-- Quote (paraphrased):
At the take-over, it was expected that DB/2 would cover all of IDS within 3
years, and everyone would upgrade because there is no reason not to, so it's
not worth actively selling IDS.

Now, it's clear that it will be at least 6 years (ie at least 2008) before
the two engines are functionally and administratively equivalent, and have
similar performance in all the necessary areas.

Further, it took a while for the strengths of IDS to be properly realised.
[amongst others, the acknowledged strengths are: stable, fast, high volume
capacity, easy to use, small footprint, leading replication (ER and HDR)]
[it was also mentioned that the greatest value of IDS's easy administration
is at sites with hundreds or thousands of machines to administer; something
which is very difficult to achieve with other engines]
-- End Quote

Although the speaker had no details (they haven't been informed internally
yet) "there will soon be a new policy, statement and positioning of Informix
which restores some or most of the lost marketing" [my words] Cynics, speak
now or forever hold your piss-n-vinegar...

As for supply issues; we have recently been signed up for the "Gold" thingy
(sorry, I don't pay attention to managerial stuff) but there has been some
hiccups. The attendees were very ernestly joining us in thinking that the
teething problems have been solved.


All-up, I'm quite optimistic about directions for Informix users. 4GL users
will probably be very happy with WebSphere. I've always been convinced that
IDS will survive, and although there is an implicit assumption that IDS
users will eventually go to DB/2, IBMers are assuming this on the grounds
that "the two engines will be functionally identical, so what's the fuss?".
I think at that point, the "tightness" of IDS will finally allow it to be
positioned into a specific sales pitch.

In fact, from other informal words, it sounds like IDS has now found a place
in presentations to prospects, even if there may not be any full-page
advertising taken out in Computer Weekly magazine... I'm very keen to see
exactly what advertising and statements begin to be uttered in the next few
months to redress the balance. I expect it will take place mostly in the
format of press releases and articles, etc.

Let's hope so. I think the biggest problem for Informix developers is simply
the false perception that Informix is a risky investment. As many people
have pointed out, prospects are very unlikely to read a white paper buried
on a website, even if they were motivated to go looking for one.

Apologies for any misquoting, misunderstandings or unfounded assumptions.


sending to informix-list

David N. Heydon wrote:
> Interesting stuff. Was there any talk of offering fixpaks (IBM
> terminology) for IDS 7.x and 9.x? It annoys me that for DB/2 I get e-
> mail alerts of customer support issues. I can go onto the website and
> check on the status of all the bugs and fixes in DB/2 and every so
> often a new fixpak will appear which I can download to include all
> the various bugfixes (DB/2 V8.1 is up to FP5 and v7 up to FP11). Why
> after all this time do we not have the same thing for IDS?

Yeah - good call. One of the guys in the meeting mentioned glibly about
looking at defect notices etc on the website; I wish now that I said
"whaaaa? where?"

As for why there's a difference; i'd hazard a guess that it's different
styles of management. Maybe DB/2 teams have been doing what you say for
years (in various forms) but Informix hasn't had that, and maybe the IDS
teams are still doing some things "the old way". Not every procedure can be
fixed or changed...