Informix 15 & 14.10 System Administration

Description

At SIXE we have been delivering official IBM training worldwide for over 15 years. If you’re looking for an official IBM Informix course taught by working DBAs — not by trainers without real-world experience — you’re in the right place. This course covers the complete administration of Informix 14.10 and Informix 15, with hands-on labs on a live server.

Course details

IBM Code: SIFMX819G	Category / Subcategory: IBM Informix · Database Administration
Delivery: Online and on-site	Duration: 3 days (24 hours)
Versions covered: Informix 14.10 and Informix 15	Languages: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese

Course description

This official IBM Informix System Administration course (SIFMX819G) provides the knowledge and skills needed to install, configure, administer and monitor IBM Informix 14.10 and Informix 15 database servers. Across 24 hours over 3 intensive days, we cover in depth the server architecture (virtual processors, shared memory, dbspaces), disk space management, physical and logical logging, backup and restore with ontape and ON-Bar, fault tolerance and fast recovery, monitoring with onstat and oncheck, performance tuning, automation with the built-in Task Scheduler, security and auditing, and the Wire Listener for REST, MongoDB and MQTT access.

Each module combines theory with hands-on labs on a live Informix 15 instance. By the end of the course, participants are ready to take on the administration of an Informix production environment — not just to repeat commands, but to diagnose and resolve the real-world problems that come up day to day.

? Important: Support for Informix 12.10 ends in April 2026. This course includes a dedicated module on migration to 14.10/15, in-place upgrade planning, and post-migration validation.

Who should attend

This course is designed for:

Database administrators (DBAs) with experience in other RDBMS (Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server) who need to administer Informix.
System administrators responsible for Informix infrastructure.
Application developers who need to understand Informix administration for DevOps or on-call duties.
Teams planning the migration from Informix 12.10 to 14.10 or 15.

Recommended prerequisites:

Working knowledge of SQL (SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE TABLE).
Basic Linux/UNIX command-line skills (environment variables, navigation, file editing).
Familiarity with a text editor (vi, nano or equivalent).
Conceptual understanding of relational architecture (tables, indexes, transactions).

No prior Informix experience is required.

What you’ll learn in this Informix course

By the end of this course, you’ll be able to:

Describe the Informix architecture: virtual processors, shared memory, and disk components.
Identify the key differences between Informix 12.10, 14.10 and Informix 15.
Install Informix and configure operating system prerequisites.
Configure a server from scratch: onconfig, sqlhosts, environment variables and initialization.
Manage disk storage: dbspaces, chunks, storage pool, mirroring and temporary dbspaces.
Configure and tune shared memory, the buffer pool and virtual processors.
Manage physical and logical logs; prevent and respond to long transactions.
Perform backup and restore with ontape; describe the ON-Bar architecture.
Explain fault tolerance mechanisms: fast recovery, mirroring and RTO configuration.
Monitor server health with onstat, oncheck and SMI (sysmaster) queries.
Diagnose and resolve lock contention; manage user sessions.
Tune performance: read-ahead, SQL Statement Cache, PDQ and autonomic tuning.
Automate administration with SQL admin functions and the built-in Task Scheduler.
Configure authentication, authorization, encryption and auditing.
Describe the Wire Listener for REST, MongoDB and MQTT access.
Apply a systematic troubleshooting methodology to real production problems.
Describe high-availability options (HDR, RSS, SDS) and their role in fault-tolerant architectures.

Instructors

The vast majority of IBM courses we deliver are taught directly by our working DBA engineers. That’s the only way we can guarantee top quality. We complement every course with our own materials and labs, built on our experience from real-world deployments, migrations and customer training over the last 15 years.

Added value

Our courses are deeply role-oriented. The needs of a development team are different from those of the people deploying and administering the infrastructure. That’s why, beyond commands and tasks, we focus on solving the problems that come up in the day-to-day: lock contention, blocking checkpoints, long transactions, full logical logs, buffer pool tuning, production backup planning. We provide the knowledge, skills and competencies required for each project. Our documentation is always based on the latest version of each product (Informix 15.0.1 at the time of publication).

Course agenda and syllabus

Day 1 — Foundations and architecture

Module 1 – Informix architecture overview

Main server components: processes, shared memory and disk.
Virtual processors (VPs), classes and multithreaded architecture.
The five portions of shared memory: resident, buffer pool, virtual, message and virtual-extension.
Storage model: pages, extents, chunks and dbspaces.
Caching mechanisms and checkpoint events.

Module 2 – What’s new: Informix 12.10 → 14.10/15

Architecture changes between versions (including CSM removal in xC9).
In-place upgrade procedure and new-host migration.
Application, driver and connectivity compatibility.
New Informix 15 features: dbspace-level encryption, Wire Listener improvements, cloud-native support.
Planning Informix 12.10 end-of-support (April 2026).

Module 3 – Pre-installation and installation

Reviewing release notes and OS prerequisites.
Required kernel parameters and OS patches.
Deployment options: native installation, Docker containers and Kubernetes.
Installing Informix Developer Edition on Linux (hands-on lab).

Module 4 – Server configuration, connectivity and initialization

Environment variables: INFORMIXDIR, INFORMIXSERVER, ONCONFIG.
Editing and tuning the onconfig file: minimum parameters to bring the server up.
Configuring sqlhosts: onsoctcp, onipcshm, onsocssl, DRDA protocols.
Client connectivity: ESQL/C, JDBC, ODBC, .NET drivers.
Server initialization (oninit -ivy) and status verification.

Day 2 — Storage, memory and data integrity

Module 5 – Disk architecture and space management

Chunk and dbspace structure: pages, extents, tblspaces.
Space types: dbspace, blobspace, sbspace, plogspace, tempdbspace.
Storage pool and automatic provisioning.
Creating, modifying and dropping dbspaces with onspaces and the SQL admin API.
Dbspace mirroring for local high availability.
Monitoring with onstat -d and oncheck -pe.

Module 6 – Memory architecture: shared memory, buffer pool and VPs

The five portions of shared memory and how to monitor them.
Buffer pool: configuration per page size, FLRU/MLRU queues, hit ratio.
Checkpoints: blocking vs non-blocking, RTO_SERVER_RESTART and CKPTINTVL parameters.
Virtual processors: CPU, AIO, PIO, LIO, NET classes; dynamic add/remove.
Memory pinning with RESIDENT=-1.
Autonomic tuning with AUTO_TUNE in Informix 14.10.

Module 7 – Physical and logical logging

Physical log purpose (before-images) and role in fast recovery.
Moving the physical log out of rootdbs to a dedicated plogspace.
Logical log: circular structure, flags, logging modes (buffered, unbuffered, ANSI).
Detecting and preventing long transactions (LTXHWM, LTXEHWM).
Dynamic log allocation with DYNAMIC_LOGS.
Monitoring with onstat -l and onstat -x.

Module 8 – Backup and restore

Backup strategies: levels 0, 1 and 2 (incremental).
Backup with ontape: configuration, execution, logical-log backups.
ON-Bar architecture and Storage Manager (PSM).
Cloud backup (S3, Azure Blob, IBM COS) in Informix 15.
Cold and warm restore; point-in-time recovery.
Backup validation and restore-test plan.

Day 3 — Production and advanced administration

Module 9 – Fault tolerance, fast recovery and high availability

Failure types: instance, disk, system, network.
Step-by-step fast recovery process.
Configuring RTO_SERVER_RESTART to guarantee recovery times.
Overview of HDR (High-Availability Data Replication), RSS (Remote Standalone Secondary) and SDS (Shared Disk Secondary).
When to use each topology.

Module 10 – Monitoring, diagnostics and user activity

Essential onstat commands: -d, -l, -p, -g seg, -g ses, -g ath.
SMI: the sysmaster database and SQL queries for monitoring.
oncheck for consistency validation.
Identifying and terminating sessions; lock analysis.
Dynamic lock manager and contention resolution.

Module 11 – Performance tuning

Read-ahead and configuration of RA_PAGES/RA_THRESHOLD.
SQL Statement Cache: configuration, usage and monitoring.
PDQ (Parallel Database Query): groups, priorities and resources.
I/O scheduler tuning.
The tuning cycle: measure → diagnose → change → measure.

Module 12 – Administration automation

SQL admin functions (admin(), task()) for SQL-driven operations.
Built-in Task Scheduler: ph_task, ph_run, ph_alert tables.
Creating scheduled tasks and custom sensors.
Event alarms (ALARMPROGRAM) and severity classes.
Integration with external monitoring systems.

Module 13 – Server security

The four pillars: authentication, authorization, encryption, auditing.
OS-based authentication, PAM and Kerberos/SSO.
DBA, RESOURCE, CONNECT privileges; roles and separation of duties (DBSA / AAO / DBSSO).
SSL/TLS for client-server communications (in transit).
Column and storage encryption (at rest, Informix 14.10+).
Audit configuration with onaudit and forwarding to syslog/SIEM.

Module 14 – Wire Listener administration

Wire Listener architecture as a protocol gateway.
Configuring the listener for REST, MongoDB and MQTT.
Modernizing applications without migrating the database.
Authentication and endpoint hardening.
Monitoring and troubleshooting the Wire Listener.

Module 15 – Troubleshooting and production readiness

Systematic troubleshooting methodology.
Analyzing online.log, af.* files and assertion-failure dumps.
Identifying permission, space and connectivity issues.
Information required by HCL/IBM Support.
Production-readiness checklist.

Module 16 – Configuration case study (final lab)

Full server initialization from scratch.
Creating dbspaces, plogspace and configuring logical logs.
Setting up automated backup with the Task Scheduler.
End-to-end validation of the installation and monitoring.

Module S1 – InformixHQ: installation, configuration and exploration

InformixHQ architecture (server + agents + repository).
Installing the server and agent from scratch.
Configuring sensors: Checkpoint, DBSpace Usage, Virtual Processors, OS CPU.
Exploring the SQL Editor, Schema Manager, Task Scheduler and System Reports.
Creating custom dashboards and alerts.

Appendix A – Installing Informix on Linux

Native installation on Rocky Linux / RHEL 8 and 9.
Docker container deployment using the official image.
Kubernetes deployment with Helm Charts (Informix 15).

Frequently asked questions

What is IBM Informix?

IBM Informix is a high-performance, embeddable relational database engine designed for OLTP, time-series and IoT workloads. It’s known for its low administration overhead, automatic resource tuning, and unique features like time-series acceleration, a JSON-compatible store and the Wire Listener for REST/MongoDB/MQTT access.

Is Informix a relational database?

Yes — Informix is a fully ACID-compliant relational database engine. It also supports object-relational extensions (DataBlades), JSON/BSON storage, time-series collections, and graph queries, making it a hybrid engine.

What is Informix used for?

Informix is widely used in industries that need high reliability with minimal administration: retail (point-of-sale), healthcare, manufacturing, telecom, transport, IoT and embedded applications. It’s particularly common in environments where the database has to run unattended for long periods.

Which Informix version is used in the course?

The course is updated to Informix 15.0.1 but also covers all the specifics of Informix 14.10, since many production customers are still on that version. Labs run on a live Informix 15 instance on RHEL 8.10.

What’s the difference between Informix 14.10 and Informix 15?

Informix 15 introduces dbspace-level encryption, significant Wire Listener improvements (MongoDB Wire Protocol 3.2–4.2 compatibility), native cloud backup to S3/Azure/IBM COS from ON-Bar, and cloud-native support via Helm Charts. Informix 14.10 introduced autonomic tuning (AUTO_TUNE), plogspace, and removed CSM in favour of native TLS/SSL. The course covers both versions in depth.

When does Informix 12.10 support end?

IBM/HCL support for Informix 12.10 ends in April 2026. We recommend planning the migration to 14.10 or directly to Informix 15 to keep security patches, official support, and access to new features. Module 2 of the course covers the upgrade procedure.

Do I need prior Informix experience to attend?

No. The course starts from the basic architecture and builds up progressively. SQL knowledge and basic Linux skills are required. If you come from another RDBMS (Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL), you’ll get up to speed quickly.

Can the course be delivered privately for my company?

Yes. We deliver it both as open enrolment (public schedule) and private/in-company, on-site or online. In private mode we can tailor the syllabus to focus on the topics that are critical for your team (e.g. 12.10→15 migration, high availability, performance tuning). Contact us for dates and pricing.

Does it include official certification?

The course is official IBM training, code SIFMX819G. It prepares you for the official IBM Informix Database Administrator certification exams. Exams are scheduled separately through Pearson VUE.

Need to adapt this syllabus to your needs? Interested in other courses?

Get in touch — no commitment.