Informix
Encyclopedia
IBM Informix is a family of relational database management system
(RDBMS) developed by IBM
. It is positioned as IBM's flagship data server for online transaction processing
(OLTP) as well as integrated solutions. IBM acquired the Informix technology in 2001.
, an early S-100
/CP/M
company, where they developed a small relational database
based on ISAM
techniques, as a part of a report-writer software package.
Sippl and King left Cromemco to found Relational Database Systems (RDS) in 1980. Their first product, Marathon, was essentially a 16-bit
version of their earlier ISAM work, made available first on the C8000 from Onyx Systems
.
At RDS, they turned their attention to the emerging RDBMS market and released their own product as Informix (INFORMation on unIX) in 1981. It included their own Informer language. It featured the ACE report writer, used to extract data from the database and present it to users for easy reading. It also featured the PERFORM screen form tool, which allowed a user to interactively query and edit the data in the database. The final release of this product was version 3.30 in early 1986.
In 1985, they introduced a new SQL
-based query engine as part of INFORMIX-SQL (or ISQL) version 1.10 (version 1.00 was never released). This product also included SQL variants of ACE and PERFORM. The most significant difference between ISQL and the previous Informix product was the separation of the database access code into an engine process (sqlexec), rather than embedding it directly in the client — thus setting the stage for client-server computing with the database running on a separate machine from the user's machine. The underlying ISAM-based file storage engine was known as C-ISAM.
Through the early 1980s Informix remained a small player, but as Unix and SQL grew in popularity during the mid-1980s, their fortunes changed. By 1986 they had become large enough to float a successful IPO, and changed the company name to Informix Software. The products included INFORMIX-SQL version 2.00 and INFORMIX-4GL 1.00, both of which included the database engine as well as development tools (I4GL for programmers, ISQL for non-programmers).
A series of releases followed, including a new query engine, initially known as INFORMIX-Turbo. Turbo used the new RSAM, with great multi-user performance benefits over C-ISAM. With the release of the version 4.00 products in 1989, Turbo was renamed INFORMIX-OnLine (in part because it permitted coherent database backups while the server was online and users were modifying the data), and the original server based on C-ISAM was separated from the tools (ISQL and I4GL) and named INFORMIX-SE (Standard Engine). Version 5.00 of Informix OnLine was released at the very end of 1990, and included full distributed transaction support with two-phase commit and stored procedure
s. Version 5.01 was released with support for triggers too.
, a spreadsheet
program for the Apple Macintosh.
WingZ
provided a graphical user interface, supported larger, 32768x32768 dimension spreadsheets, and offered programming in a HyperCard
-like language known as HyperScript. The original release proved successful, becoming the number two spreadsheet, behind Microsoft Excel
. In 1990, WingZ ports started appearing for a number of other platforms, mostly Unix
variants. During this period, many financial institutions began investing in Unix workstations as a route to increasing the desktop "grunt" required to run large financial models. For a brief period, Wingz was successfully marketed into this niche.
However it suffered from a lack of development and marketing resources. By the early 1990s WingZ had become uncompetitive, and Informix eventually sold it in 1995. Informix also sold a license to Claris
, who combined it with a rather updated GUI as Claris Resolve
.
, Informix released its version 6.00 database server, which featured its new Dynamic Scalable Architecture, DSA.
DSA involved a major rework of the core engine of the product, supporting both horizontal parallelism and vertical parallelism, and based on a multi-threaded
core well suited towards the symmetric multiprocessing
systems that Sequent pioneered and that major vendors like Sun Microsystems
and Hewlett-Packard
would eventually follow up on. The two forms of parallelism made the product capable of market-leading levels of scalability, both for OLTP and data warehousing.
Now known as Informix Dynamic Server (after briefly entertaining the name Obsidian and then being named Informix OnLine Dynamic Server), Version 7 hit the market in 1994. Version 7 consistently won performance benchmarks.
Building on the success of Version 7, Informix split its core database development investment into two efforts. One effort, first known as XMP (for eXtended Multi-Processing), became the Version 8 product line, also known as XPS (for eXtended Parallel Server). This effort focused on enhancements in data warehousing and parallelism in high-end platforms, including shared-nothing platforms such as IBM's RS-6000/SP.
, concentrated on object-relational database
(O-R) technology. Illustra
, written by ex-Postgres
team members and led by database pioneer Michael Stonebraker
, included various features that allowed it to return fully formed objects directly from the database, a feature that can significantly reduce programming time in many projects. Illustra also included a feature known as DataBlades that allowed new data types and features to be included in the basic server as options. These included solutions to a number of thorny SQL problems, namely time series, spatial and multimedia data. Informix integrated Illustra's O-R mapping
and DataBlades into the 7.x OnLine product, resulting in Informix Universal Server (IUS), or more generally, Version 9.
Both new versions, V8 (XPS) and V9 (IUS), appeared on the market in 1996, making Informix the first of the "big three" database companies (the others being Oracle
and Sybase) to offer built-in O-R support. Commentators paid particular attention to the DataBlades, which soon became very popular: dozens appeared within a year, ported to the new architecture after partnerships with Illustra. This left other vendors scrambling, with Oracle introducing a "grafted on" package for time-series support in 1997, and Sybase turning to a third party for an external package which remains an unconvincing solution.
programming language. Michael Stonebraker
had promised that the Illustra
technology would be integrated within a year after the late 1995 acquisition, but as Gartner Group had predicted, the integration required more than 2 years. Unhappy with the new direction of the company, XPS lead architect Gary Kelley suddenly resigned and joined arch-rival Oracle Corporation
in early 1997, taking 11 of his developers with him. Informix ultimately sued Oracle to prevent loss of trade secrets.
Although allegations of misgovernance continued to haunt Informix, the capabilities of Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) began to strengthen. New leadership began to emerge as well. An excerpt from the September 22, 1998 issue of PC Magazine's article on the top 100 companies that are changing the way you compute:
In November 2002, Phillip White, the former CEO of Informix ousted in 1997, was indicted by a federal grand jury
and charged with eight counts of securities, wire, and mail fraud. In a plea bargain thirteen months later, he pleaded guilty to a single count of filing a false registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
In May 2004, the Department of Justice
announced White was sentenced to two months in federal prison for securities fraud, a fine of $10,000, along with a two-year period of supervised release and 300 hours of community service. The announcement noted that the amount of loss to shareholders from the violation, could not reasonably be estimated under the facts of the case. White's earlier plea agreement had limited prison time to no more than 12 months.
German citizen and resident Walter Königseder, the company's Vice-President in charge of European operations, was also indicted by a federal grand jury but the United States has been unable to secure his extradition
.
In November 2005, a book detailing the rise and fall of Informix Software and CEO Phil White was published. Written by a long time Informix Employee, The Real Story of Informix Software and Phil White: Lessons in Business and Leadership for the Executive team.
) to its already-numerous list of database engines at the time, which included not only the Informix heritage products, but a datawarehouse-oriented SQL engine from Red Brick and the 100% Java version of SQL, Cloudscape (which was later bundled with the reference implementation of J2EE
).
Prior to its purchase, Informix's product lineup included:
In April 2001, IBM took advantage of this reorganization and, prompted by a suggestion from Wal-Mart
(Informix's largest customer), bought from Informix the database technology, the brand, the plans for future development (an internal project codenamed "Arrowhead"), and the over 100,000-customer base associated with these. The remaining application and tools company renamed itself Ascential Software. In May 2005, IBM bought Ascential, reuniting Informix's assets under IBM's Information Management Software
portfolio.
, with both databases sharing technology with each other, although IBM denied fusion of the two products. In early 2005, IBM released version 10 of Informix Dynamic Server (IDS). IDS 11 (v11.10, codenamed "Cheetah") has been generally available since July 6, 2007. The announcement was made in Lenexa, KS on June 12, 2007.
IBM also released IDS 11.5 (codenamed "Cheetah2") in May 2008. It enhanced the IDS continuous and high availability and application development features.
Current version, is IBM Informix 11.7 code-named "Panther". It implements compression and Flexible Grid features.
topics.
As part of IBM's Academic Initiative, IBM is offering Informix software, documentation and training to higher education institutions worldwide through its new Informix on Campus program. To facilitate this, IBM is offering an inclusive package of Informix materials to college faculty called "Informix In a Box", which offers hands-on labs and PowerPoints to use in lessons, recorded training for teachers, DVDs with class material and VMware virtual appliance images, as well as T-shirts for students.
Relational database management system
A relational database management system is a database management system that is based on the relational model as introduced by E. F. Codd. Most popular databases currently in use are based on the relational database model....
(RDBMS) developed by IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
. It is positioned as IBM's flagship data server for online transaction processing
Online transaction processing
Online transaction processing, or OLTP, refers to a class of systems that facilitate and manage transaction-oriented applications, typically for data entry and retrieval transaction processing...
(OLTP) as well as integrated solutions. IBM acquired the Informix technology in 2001.
Early history
Roger Sippl and Laura King worked at CromemcoCromemco
Cromemco was a Mountain View, California microcomputer company known for its high-end Z80-based S-100 bus computers in the early days of the home computer revolution. The Cromemco Dazzler was the first color graphics card available for personal computers....
, an early S-100
S-100 bus
The S-100 bus or Altair bus, IEEE696-1983 , was an early computer bus designed in 1974 as a part of the Altair 8800, generally considered today to be the first personal computer...
/CP/M
CP/M
CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
company, where they developed a small relational database
Relational database
A relational database is a database that conforms to relational model theory. The software used in a relational database is called a relational database management system . Colloquial use of the term "relational database" may refer to the RDBMS software, or the relational database itself...
based on ISAM
ISAM
ISAM stands for Indexed Sequential Access Method, a method for indexing data for fast retrieval. ISAM was originally developed by IBM for mainframe computers...
techniques, as a part of a report-writer software package.
Sippl and King left Cromemco to found Relational Database Systems (RDS) in 1980. Their first product, Marathon, was essentially a 16-bit
16-bit
-16-bit architecture:The HP BPC, introduced in 1975, was the world's first 16-bit microprocessor. Prominent 16-bit processors include the PDP-11, Intel 8086, Intel 80286 and the WDC 65C816. The Intel 8088 was program-compatible with the Intel 8086, and was 16-bit in that its registers were 16...
version of their earlier ISAM work, made available first on the C8000 from Onyx Systems
Onyx Systems
Onyx Systems, Inc., founded in Cupertino, California in 1979 by Bob Marsh and Kip Myers, was one of the earliest vendors of microprocessor-based Unix systems...
.
At RDS, they turned their attention to the emerging RDBMS market and released their own product as Informix (INFORMation on unIX) in 1981. It included their own Informer language. It featured the ACE report writer, used to extract data from the database and present it to users for easy reading. It also featured the PERFORM screen form tool, which allowed a user to interactively query and edit the data in the database. The final release of this product was version 3.30 in early 1986.
In 1985, they introduced a new SQL
SQL
SQL is a programming language designed for managing data in relational database management systems ....
-based query engine as part of INFORMIX-SQL (or ISQL) version 1.10 (version 1.00 was never released). This product also included SQL variants of ACE and PERFORM. The most significant difference between ISQL and the previous Informix product was the separation of the database access code into an engine process (sqlexec), rather than embedding it directly in the client — thus setting the stage for client-server computing with the database running on a separate machine from the user's machine. The underlying ISAM-based file storage engine was known as C-ISAM.
Through the early 1980s Informix remained a small player, but as Unix and SQL grew in popularity during the mid-1980s, their fortunes changed. By 1986 they had become large enough to float a successful IPO, and changed the company name to Informix Software. The products included INFORMIX-SQL version 2.00 and INFORMIX-4GL 1.00, both of which included the database engine as well as development tools (I4GL for programmers, ISQL for non-programmers).
A series of releases followed, including a new query engine, initially known as INFORMIX-Turbo. Turbo used the new RSAM, with great multi-user performance benefits over C-ISAM. With the release of the version 4.00 products in 1989, Turbo was renamed INFORMIX-OnLine (in part because it permitted coherent database backups while the server was online and users were modifying the data), and the original server based on C-ISAM was separated from the tools (ISQL and I4GL) and named INFORMIX-SE (Standard Engine). Version 5.00 of Informix OnLine was released at the very end of 1990, and included full distributed transaction support with two-phase commit and stored procedure
Stored procedure
A stored procedure is a subroutine available to applications that access a relational database system. A stored procedure is actually stored in the database data dictionary.Typical uses for stored procedures include data validation or access control mechanisms...
s. Version 5.01 was released with support for triggers too.
Innovative Software acquisition
In 1988, Informix purchased Innovative Software, makers of a DOS and Unix-based office system called SmartWare and WingZInformix Wingz
Wingz was a spreadsheet program sold by Informix in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Originally developed for the Macintosh, it was later distributed on Microsoft Windows, OS/2, NextStep and several other commercial flavors of Unix...
, a spreadsheet
Spreadsheet
A spreadsheet is a computer application that simulates a paper accounting worksheet. It displays multiple cells usually in a two-dimensional matrix or grid consisting of rows and columns. Each cell contains alphanumeric text, numeric values or formulas...
program for the Apple Macintosh.
WingZ
Informix Wingz
Wingz was a spreadsheet program sold by Informix in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Originally developed for the Macintosh, it was later distributed on Microsoft Windows, OS/2, NextStep and several other commercial flavors of Unix...
provided a graphical user interface, supported larger, 32768x32768 dimension spreadsheets, and offered programming in a HyperCard
HyperCard
HyperCard is an application program created by Bill Atkinson for Apple Computer, Inc. that was among the first successful hypermedia systems before the World Wide Web. It combines database capabilities with a graphical, flexible, user-modifiable interface. HyperCard also features HyperTalk, written...
-like language known as HyperScript. The original release proved successful, becoming the number two spreadsheet, behind Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel is a proprietary commercial spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications...
. In 1990, WingZ ports started appearing for a number of other platforms, mostly Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
variants. During this period, many financial institutions began investing in Unix workstations as a route to increasing the desktop "grunt" required to run large financial models. For a brief period, Wingz was successfully marketed into this niche.
However it suffered from a lack of development and marketing resources. By the early 1990s WingZ had become uncompetitive, and Informix eventually sold it in 1995. Informix also sold a license to Claris
Claris
Claris was a computer software developer formed as a spin-off from Apple Computer in 1987. It was given the source code and copyrights to several programs that were owned by Apple, notably MacWrite and MacPaint, in order to separate Apple's application software activities from its hardware and...
, who combined it with a rather updated GUI as Claris Resolve
Claris Resolve
Claris Resolve was a spreadsheet software program for the Apple Macintosh. It was released by Claris in 1991 and sold until 1994.In an effort to flesh out their software suite, in the early 90's Claris wanted to introduce a spreadsheet application, and decided to buy an existing one...
.
Dynamic Scalable Architecture
With its failure in office automation products, Informix refocused on the growing database server market. In 1994, as part of a collaboration with Sequent Computer SystemsSequent Computer Systems
Sequent Computer Systems, or Sequent, was a computer company that designed and manufactured multiprocessing computer systems. They were among the pioneers in high-performance symmetric multiprocessing open systems, innovating in both hardware and software Sequent Computer Systems, or Sequent, was...
, Informix released its version 6.00 database server, which featured its new Dynamic Scalable Architecture, DSA.
DSA involved a major rework of the core engine of the product, supporting both horizontal parallelism and vertical parallelism, and based on a multi-threaded
Thread (computer science)
In computer science, a thread of execution is the smallest unit of processing that can be scheduled by an operating system. The implementation of threads and processes differs from one operating system to another, but in most cases, a thread is contained inside a process...
core well suited towards the symmetric multiprocessing
Symmetric multiprocessing
In computing, symmetric multiprocessing involves a multiprocessor computer hardware architecture where two or more identical processors are connected to a single shared main memory and are controlled by a single OS instance. Most common multiprocessor systems today use an SMP architecture...
systems that Sequent pioneered and that major vendors like Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
and Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
would eventually follow up on. The two forms of parallelism made the product capable of market-leading levels of scalability, both for OLTP and data warehousing.
Now known as Informix Dynamic Server (after briefly entertaining the name Obsidian and then being named Informix OnLine Dynamic Server), Version 7 hit the market in 1994. Version 7 consistently won performance benchmarks.
Building on the success of Version 7, Informix split its core database development investment into two efforts. One effort, first known as XMP (for eXtended Multi-Processing), became the Version 8 product line, also known as XPS (for eXtended Parallel Server). This effort focused on enhancements in data warehousing and parallelism in high-end platforms, including shared-nothing platforms such as IBM's RS-6000/SP.
Illustra acquisition
The second focus, which followed the late 1995 purchase of IllustraIllustra
Illustra was a commercialized version of the Postgres object-relational database management system sold by Illustra Information Technologies, a company formed by Michael Stonebraker and Gary Morgenthaler and several of Michael Stonebraker's current and former students including: Wei Hong, Jeff...
, concentrated on object-relational database
Object-relational database
An object-relational database , or object-relational database management system , is a database management system similar to a relational database, but with an object-oriented database model: objects, classes and inheritance are directly supported in database schemas and in the query language...
(O-R) technology. Illustra
Illustra
Illustra was a commercialized version of the Postgres object-relational database management system sold by Illustra Information Technologies, a company formed by Michael Stonebraker and Gary Morgenthaler and several of Michael Stonebraker's current and former students including: Wei Hong, Jeff...
, written by ex-Postgres
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL, often simply Postgres, is an object-relational database management system available for many platforms including Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, MS Windows and Mac OS X. It is released under the PostgreSQL License, which is an MIT-style license, and is thus free and open source software...
team members and led by database pioneer Michael Stonebraker
Michael Stonebraker
Michael Ralph Stonebraker is a computer scientist specializing in database research.Through a series of academic prototypes and commercial startups, Stonebraker's research and products are central to many relational database systems on the market today...
, included various features that allowed it to return fully formed objects directly from the database, a feature that can significantly reduce programming time in many projects. Illustra also included a feature known as DataBlades that allowed new data types and features to be included in the basic server as options. These included solutions to a number of thorny SQL problems, namely time series, spatial and multimedia data. Informix integrated Illustra's O-R mapping
Object-relational mapping
Object-relational mapping in computer software is a programming technique for converting data between incompatible type systems in object-oriented programming languages. This creates, in effect, a "virtual object database" that can be used from within the programming language...
and DataBlades into the 7.x OnLine product, resulting in Informix Universal Server (IUS), or more generally, Version 9.
Both new versions, V8 (XPS) and V9 (IUS), appeared on the market in 1996, making Informix the first of the "big three" database companies (the others being Oracle
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...
and Sybase) to offer built-in O-R support. Commentators paid particular attention to the DataBlades, which soon became very popular: dozens appeared within a year, ported to the new architecture after partnerships with Illustra. This left other vendors scrambling, with Oracle introducing a "grafted on" package for time-series support in 1997, and Sybase turning to a third party for an external package which remains an unconvincing solution.
Internal problems
Although Informix took a technological lead in the database software market, product releases began to fall behind schedule by late 1996. Plagued with technical and marketing problems, a new application development product, Informix-NewEra, was soon overshadowed by the emerging JavaJava (programming language)
Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
programming language. Michael Stonebraker
Michael Stonebraker
Michael Ralph Stonebraker is a computer scientist specializing in database research.Through a series of academic prototypes and commercial startups, Stonebraker's research and products are central to many relational database systems on the market today...
had promised that the Illustra
Illustra
Illustra was a commercialized version of the Postgres object-relational database management system sold by Illustra Information Technologies, a company formed by Michael Stonebraker and Gary Morgenthaler and several of Michael Stonebraker's current and former students including: Wei Hong, Jeff...
technology would be integrated within a year after the late 1995 acquisition, but as Gartner Group had predicted, the integration required more than 2 years. Unhappy with the new direction of the company, XPS lead architect Gary Kelley suddenly resigned and joined arch-rival Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...
in early 1997, taking 11 of his developers with him. Informix ultimately sued Oracle to prevent loss of trade secrets.
Misgovernance
Failures in marketing and an unfortunate leadership in corporate misgovernance overshadowed Informix's technical successes. On April 1, 1997, Informix announced that first quarter revenues fell short of expectations by $100 million. CEO Phillip White blamed the shortfall on a loss of focus on the core database business while devoting too many resources to object-relational technology. Huge operating losses and job cuts followed. Informix re-stated earnings from 1994 through 1996. A significant amount of revenue from the mid-1990s involved software license sales to partners who did not sell through to an end-user customer; this and other irregularies led to overstating revenue by over $200 million. Even after White's departure in July, 1997, the company continued to struggle with accounting practices, re-stating earnings again in early 1998.Although allegations of misgovernance continued to haunt Informix, the capabilities of Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) began to strengthen. New leadership began to emerge as well. An excerpt from the September 22, 1998 issue of PC Magazine's article on the top 100 companies that are changing the way you compute:
- ...Informix is battling rival Oracle in the object/relational arena by extending its flagship Informix Dynamic Server with a Universal Data Option. After a turbulent year that included a problematic audit, Robert Finnocchio was appointed as the new CEO of the Menlo Park, California company. With 1997 revenues of $662.3 million, Informix has begun to strengthen its position in the database market.
In November 2002, Phillip White, the former CEO of Informix ousted in 1997, was indicted by a federal grand jury
Grand jury
A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...
and charged with eight counts of securities, wire, and mail fraud. In a plea bargain thirteen months later, he pleaded guilty to a single count of filing a false registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
In May 2004, the Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
announced White was sentenced to two months in federal prison for securities fraud, a fine of $10,000, along with a two-year period of supervised release and 300 hours of community service. The announcement noted that the amount of loss to shareholders from the violation, could not reasonably be estimated under the facts of the case. White's earlier plea agreement had limited prison time to no more than 12 months.
German citizen and resident Walter Königseder, the company's Vice-President in charge of European operations, was also indicted by a federal grand jury but the United States has been unable to secure his extradition
Extradition
Extradition is the official process whereby one nation or state surrenders a suspected or convicted criminal to another nation or state. Between nation states, extradition is regulated by treaties...
.
In November 2005, a book detailing the rise and fall of Informix Software and CEO Phil White was published. Written by a long time Informix Employee, The Real Story of Informix Software and Phil White: Lessons in Business and Leadership for the Executive team.
Other acquisitions
Starting in the year 2000, the major events in Informix's history no longer centered on its technical innovations. That year, in March, Informix acquired Ardent Software, a company that had a history of mergers and acquisitions of its own. That acquisition added multi-dimensional engines UniVerse and UniData (known collectively as U2IBM U2
Rocket U2 is a suite of database management and supporting software now owned by Rocket Software. It includes two MultiValue database platforms: UniData and UniVerse. Both of these products are operating environments which run on current Unix, Linux and Windows operating systems. They are both...
) to its already-numerous list of database engines at the time, which included not only the Informix heritage products, but a datawarehouse-oriented SQL engine from Red Brick and the 100% Java version of SQL, Cloudscape (which was later bundled with the reference implementation of J2EE
Java Platform, Enterprise Edition
Java Platform, Enterprise Edition or Java EE is widely used platform for server programming in the Java programming language. The Java platform differs from the Java Standard Edition Platform in that it adds libraries which provide functionality to deploy fault-tolerant, distributed, multi-tier...
).
Prior to its purchase, Informix's product lineup included:
- Informix C-ISAM - the latest version of the original Marathon database
- Informix SE - offered as a low-end system for embedding into applications
- Informix OnLine - a competent system for managing medium size databases
- Informix Extended Parallel Server (XPS, V8) - a high-end version of the V7 code base for use on huge distributed machines
- Informix Universal Server (V9) - a combination of the V7 OnLine engine with the O-R mapping and DataBlade support from Illustra
- Informix-4GLInformix-4GLInformix-4GL is a 4GL programming language developed by Informix during the mid-1980s.-Description:It includes embedded SQL, a report writer language, a form language, and a limited set of imperative capabilities...
- A fourth generation language for application programming - Red Brick Warehouse - a data warehouseData warehouseIn computing, a data warehouse is a database used for reporting and analysis. The data stored in the warehouse is uploaded from the operational systems. The data may pass through an operational data store for additional operations before it is used in the DW for reporting.A data warehouse...
product - Cloudscape - an RDBMS written entirely in Java that fits into mobile devices on the low-end and J2EE-based architectures on the high end. In 2004 Cloudscape was released by IBMIBMInternational Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
as an Open SourceOpen sourceThe term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
database to be managed by the Apache Software FoundationApache Software FoundationThe Apache Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation to support Apache software projects, including the Apache HTTP Server. The ASF was formed from the Apache Group and incorporated in Delaware, U.S., in June 1999.The Apache Software Foundation is a decentralized community of developers...
under the name DerbyApache DerbyApache Derby is a relational database management system developed by the Apache Software Foundation that can be embedded in Java programs and used for online transaction processing. It has a 2 MB disk-space footprint.Apache Derby is developed as an open source project under the Apache 2.0 license...
. - U2 suite, UniVerse and UniData - multidimensional databases that offer networks, hierarchies, arrays and other data formats difficult to model in SQL
IBM's takeover of Informix
In July 2000, the former CEO of Ardent, Peter Gyenes, became the CEO of Informix, and soon re-organized Informix to make it more attractive as an acquisition target. The major step taken was to separate out all of the database engine technologies from the applications and tools.In April 2001, IBM took advantage of this reorganization and, prompted by a suggestion from Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. , branded as Walmart since 2008 and Wal-Mart before then, is an American public multinational corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. The company is the world's 18th largest public corporation, according to the Forbes Global 2000...
(Informix's largest customer), bought from Informix the database technology, the brand, the plans for future development (an internal project codenamed "Arrowhead"), and the over 100,000-customer base associated with these. The remaining application and tools company renamed itself Ascential Software. In May 2005, IBM bought Ascential, reuniting Informix's assets under IBM's Information Management Software
IBM Information Management Software
Information Management Software is one of the brands within IBM's Software Group division. The major Information Management products include:* DB2 — relational database management system...
portfolio.
Current plans
IBM has long-term plans for both Informix and DB2IBM DB2
The IBM DB2 Enterprise Server Edition is a relational model database server developed by IBM. It primarily runs on Unix , Linux, IBM i , z/OS and Windows servers. DB2 also powers the different IBM InfoSphere Warehouse editions...
, with both databases sharing technology with each other, although IBM denied fusion of the two products. In early 2005, IBM released version 10 of Informix Dynamic Server (IDS). IDS 11 (v11.10, codenamed "Cheetah") has been generally available since July 6, 2007. The announcement was made in Lenexa, KS on June 12, 2007.
IBM also released IDS 11.5 (codenamed "Cheetah2") in May 2008. It enhanced the IDS continuous and high availability and application development features.
Current version, is IBM Informix 11.7 code-named "Panther". It implements compression and Flexible Grid features.
Training and certification
IBM Training includes a complete set of core Data Servers Training courses that apply to Informix. These courses delve into many essential Informix concepts, from fundamentals to advanced SQLSQL
SQL is a programming language designed for managing data in relational database management systems ....
topics.
As part of IBM's Academic Initiative, IBM is offering Informix software, documentation and training to higher education institutions worldwide through its new Informix on Campus program. To facilitate this, IBM is offering an inclusive package of Informix materials to college faculty called "Informix In a Box", which offers hands-on labs and PowerPoints to use in lessons, recorded training for teachers, DVDs with class material and VMware virtual appliance images, as well as T-shirts for students.
See also
- List of relational database management systems
- Comparison of relational database management systemsComparison of relational database management systemsThe following tables compare general and technical information for a number of relational database management systems. Please see the individual products' articles for further information. This article is not all-inclusive or necessarily up to date...
External links
- IBM Informix site
- The Real Story of Informix Software and Phil White, promotion website for a book (ISBN 0972182225) published in 2005 by Sand Hill Publishing
- IIUG (International Informix Users Group) IIUG
- The Informix Zone, a community website
- planetIDS, an Informix Blog Aggregator
- The (good) problem with Informix from theregister.co.uk
- Free Informix Books and Guides from freebookcentre.net