Administering Informix Dynamic Server, Building the Foundation
Table of Contents
If you compare the tables of contents for this book with that of my first
editions, you'll see that it is very similar in design. Of
course the content has been updated to reflect current technology. Becuase of
the new information, it was decided to split this into two volumes just to keep
the sheer volume of the book to a reasonable size.
The overall structure though is the same -- I wanted the book to be a hands-on type
of experience. My intention was to take you through the logical series of steps
that an administrator would have to follow as you worked with the data server to
create an operational database instance. I felt it was important to include
both engine and database administrative functions as each would occur during
this process.
As a result, the material is devided into two volumes. In this, the first volume, the data server's architecture and terminology are explained. General
instance and database design issues are covered as well as the creation or
modification of instance configuration files. Next, I walk you through the
initialization process explaining the most important variables and their
impact on the instance. I also cover all the basic instance and database
administrative functions that need to be performed with some regularity
including backup and recovery as well as different data server and database
monitoring utilities.
There is one appendix with table sizing information and guidance.
If you have any comments, please send
them to me.
Chapter 1: Introduction to Informix Dynamic Server
- What Is Informix-Dynamic Server?
- The Informix-Dynamic Server Architecture Model
- The Processor Component
- The Shared Memory Component
- The Resident Portion
- The Virtual Portion
- The Message Portion
- The Virtual-extension Portion
- The Disk Component
Definition of Terms
- Physical Elements
- Instance Elements
- Database Terms
- Types of Databases
- Transactions
- Checkpoints
Chapter 2: An Introduction to Extensibility
- What is it and Why Should you Care?
- Extensible data Types
- Casting
- Functional Indexes
- User-defined Routines and Aggregates
- DataBlades
Chapter 3: Preparing for Initialization
- Logical Database Design
- Calculating Table Sizes
- Disk Drive Issues
- Mirroring
- RAID
- Level 0
- Level 1
- Level 0+1
- Levels 5 and 6
- Software-Based Disk Management
- Which to Choose?
- Using "Cooked" Files or "Raw" Space for Dbspaces
- Using Symbolic Links
- Working with Cooked Files
- Dbspace Design Issues
- Kernel Tuning
- Backup Strategies
- Setting up the Environment
- Preparing the install location
- Required Files
- The $ONCONFIG file
- The SQLHOSTS file
- Configuring in Windows
- Environment Variables
- Required Variables
- INFORMIXDIR
- ONCONFIG
- INFORMIXSERVER
- INFORMIXSQLHOSTS
- DBEDIT
- Other Variables
- Multiple Residency Issues
Chapter 4: Installing and Initializing IDS
- Installing or upgrading the Server
- Upgrading from an Earlier Version
- A New Installation
- Replicating the installation on Multiple Physical Servers
- Control files for the installation wizard, modifying an installation
- Uninstalling
- Understanding and Modifying Configuration Parameters
- Initial Devices
- System Configuration
- Shared Memory
- Data Replication
- Backup and Restore
- Starting the Instance for the First Time
- The "Sys" Databases
- The sysmaster Database and the SMI
- The sysutils Database
- The sysuser Database
- The sysadmin Database
- The syscdr Database
- The sysha Database
Chapter 5: Basic Administrative Tasks
- Informix Administration Utilities
- OpenAdmin Tool for IDS
- Server Studio Java Edition
- The SQL Administration API
- Changing Operating Modes
- Changing Database Logging Modes
- Managing Dbspaces and BLOBspaces
- Types of Logical Storage Spaces
- Temporary Spaces
- Offsets
- Partitions
- Configurable Dbspace Page Sizes
- Understanding Informix's Naming Conventions - Windows
- Creating Spaces
- Simple BLOBspaces
- Smart BLOBspaces
- Adding a Disk Chunk
- Dropping a Disk Chunk
- Dropping a Space
- Adding or Dropping a Mirror
- Changing the Status of a Chunk
- Setting or Modifying DATASKIP
- Creating, Moving and Resizing Logs
- The Physical Log
- The Logical Logs
- Starting and Stopping Informix Dynamic Server Automatically
- Basic Instance Access Control and Security
- Terminating a User Session
Chapter 6: Building a Database Environment
- The dbaccess Utility
- Database Logging Modes
- Creating the Database
- Table and Index Creation, Partitioning
- Creating Tables and Indexes
- Additional Table Creation Options
- Partitioning Tables
- Round Robin Partitioning
- "By Expression" Partitioning
- Evaluating the Expression
- Partitioning Indexes
- Altering Partitions
- Initializing, Adding or Modifying Partitions
- Dropping Partitions
- Attaching Tables
- Detaching Partitions
- Altering Tables
- Constraints, Referential Integrity and Indexes
- Stored Procedures, UDRs and Triggers
- Constraints and Indexes
- The Logical Differences between Constraints and Indexes
- Differences in their Enforcement
- How to Create Constraints
- Fragmenting Constraints
- Populating the Database
- Dbimport
- The SQL load Statement
- The dbload Utility
- The onload utility
- The High-Performance Loader
- Flat File Loads Through 4GL or other Application Languages
- Concurrency and Isolation Levels
- Lock Types and Modes
- Understanding and Setting Isolation Levels
- SQL Statements That Might Be of Interest
- Violations and Diagnostics, Constraint and Index Enabling and Filtering
- Default Roles
- Iterator Functions and Derived Tables in the from Clause
- Date and Datetime Functions
- String manipulation
- Sequences
- Triggers on Views
- Order-by Not in Select List
- The dbschema Utility
Chapter 7: Backing up and Restoring
- Backup Strategies
- The Focused Approach
- The "Whole-istic" Approach
- Logical Logs
- Backup Devices
- Tape Devices
- Backup to Directory and File Handling
- Understanding the Backup Process
- Restore Options
- Redirected restores
- Using the Ontape Utility
- Creating Backups (including fake)
- Restoring From Backups
- Using ON-Bar and the Informix Storage Manager
- The ON-Bar Utility Suite and the ISM
- Configuring the ISM and ON-Bar
- Setting the Server Properties
- Log Files
- Configuring Storage Devices
- Labeling Volumes
- Mounting Volumes
- Creating Backups with ON-Bar (including fake)
- Volume Inventories
- Restoring and Recovering from an ON-Bar Backup
- Restoring Instances and/or Dbspaces
- Restartable Restores
- Recovering from a Catastrophic Failure
- Logical Log Backups through ON-Bar
- Cloning Volumes or Save Sets
- Verifying Backups with Archecker
- Using the Table-Level Restore Functionality
Chapter 8: Monitoring the Instance
- The New System Administration Interface
- Command Line Utilities
- Engine Status Reports: the onstat Utility
- Looking at User Threads
- Disk and Chunk Information
- General Instance Monitoring
- Database Integrity Reports: the oncheck Utility
- Instance Reserved Pages
- System Catalog Tables
- Tablespace Report
- Chunk Free List and Tablespace Interleaving
- Verifying Data and Index Consistency and Integrity
- Instance and System Monitoring Through OAT
Appendix A: Table Sizing Worksheet
Index
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