hi team currently we are using SQL Server Management  12 and Informix Client version 4.10 and Java 6 so ,To Remove the Vulnerabilities and to upgrade the Informix to higher version and know the Compatibility for the higher version to which it has to be updated , could some one help on this . 

Aditya:

The current CSDK release is 4.50.FC10 I believe. V4.50 fixed a handful of very old bugs and added support for some new v14.10 server features. Informix backwards and forwards compatibility is legendary. I have never had any trouble either running applications compiled with older SDK versions (up to a point) against later engine releases, nor with running applications compiled with the latest SDK running against older engine releases as long as the apps were either compiled STATIC or their runtime environment points to the libraries from the SDK release that compiled them.

Obviously due diligence demands that you test that for your specific environment, but it should be a smooth upgrade.

Art

hi team currently we are using SQL Server Management  12 and Informix Client version 4.10 and Java 6 so ,To Remove the Vulnerabilities and to upgrade the Informix to higher version and know the Compatibility for the higher version to which it has to be updated , could some one help on this . 

Thank you,can you please provide any links or docs for the upgrading process or configuration process or Backup process if something goes wrong .

Aditya:

The current CSDK release is 4.50.FC10 I believe. V4.50 fixed a handful of very old bugs and added support for some new v14.10 server features. Informix backwards and forwards compatibility is legendary. I have never had any trouble either running applications compiled with older SDK versions (up to a point) against later engine releases, nor with running applications compiled with the latest SDK running against older engine releases as long as the apps were either compiled STATIC or their runtime environment points to the libraries from the SDK release that compiled them.

Obviously due diligence demands that you test that for your specific environment, but it should be a smooth upgrade.

Art

hi team currently we are using SQL Server Management  12 and Informix Client version 4.10 and Java 6 so ,To Remove the Vulnerabilities and to upgrade the Informix to higher version and know the Compatibility for the higher version to which it has to be updated , could some one help on this . 

Aditya:

Upgrade process:

• Take a level 0 archive for safety and make sure that the logical logs are being backed up (In 43 years upgrading Informix I've never needed to restore, but us DBAs are a paranoid bunch!)
• If you have made any changes in the sysadmin database (such as disabling task in the ph_task table or adding or changing the effective values in the ph_threshold) then unload those tables so that you can reapply the changes in the new installation as sysadmin is dropped and recreated during the upgrade.
• Create a new directory for the new software along side of the existing $INFORMIXDIR, Name it after the version so something like /opt/informix/ifx_14.10.FC10W1 or whatever. You should be using a symbolic link for the actual path in INFORMIXDIR, so later you will be moving that link to point to the new installation. The directory should be owned by informix and group informix with privileges of 755 (rwxr-xr-x).
• As 'root' (or administrator in Windows) set INFORMIXDIR temporarily to the new install directory path.
• Run the installer for the package and (for v14.10) the license installer for you licensed Edition.
• Copy the ONCONFIG file from the existing INFORMIXDIR/etc into the new $INFORMIXDIR/etc.
• If the sqlhosts file lives in $INFORMIXDIR/etc then copy this file as well. If you are using the INFORMIXSQLHOSTS environment variable to locate the sqlhosts file somewhere other than $INFORMIXDIR/etc (best practice is to place it in the parent of INFORMIXDIR using that env variable) then you don't have to copy the file, it can stay where it is.
• Compare the $ONCONFIG file to the default file $INFORMIXDIR/etc/onconfig.std to see if there are any new parameters or changes in configuration of some existing parameters and make any needed changes. 
• If you have made any changes to the script that the ALARMPROGRAM parameter in the ONCONFIG file points to, you will want to either copy your modified script to the new installation or make the same changes to the corresponding script in the new install.
• If you have installed any custom datablades in $INFORMIXDIR/extend then you will need to copy them into the new INFORMIXDIR from the old one. Some, if built in "C", may need to be recompiled, relinked and the new library installed instead of copying the old one.
• Before you start the new software to perform the upgrade, you are STRONGLY encouraged to complete any outstanding in-place alters. You can use the SQL API function "update_ipa" to do that. See the Administrator's Reference manual or the online manuals for details. Doing this is not strictly needed for the upgrade, however, if you have to revert to the original release version they will have to be completed at that time which will delay the reversion. So let's get that out-of-the-way now.

You are now ready to upgrade whenever you have time for a scheduled outage. The upgrade is as simple as:

1. As user informix:
2. Force a checkpoint (onmode -c).
3. Force a change to the next logical log (onmode -l) and make sure that the log has been backed up.
4. Shutdown the existing engine.
5. Relink the INFORMIXDIR symbolic link to point to the new installation (or if you weren't using a link before, rename the old INFORMIXDIR directory and create a symbolic link with the same path that is being used for INFORMIXDIR pointing at the new installation. (This makes upgrades much simpler since you do not have to change any scripts that set up the environment for you.)
6. Made sure that the "oninit" executable that your session can see is the new one with:
   oninit -V and verify the release and Edition from the output.
7. Start the engine using whatever startup scripts you were using before or:
   oninit -vw. If there is a risk of users connecting before the upgrade completes then start the engine in administration mode (onmode -j -vw) so only user informix can connect or single user mode (oninit -s -vw) so no one can connect.
8. Take a level 0 archive.

That's it. Just wait, monitoring the message log (onmode -m or "tail -f" the message file) until messages show that any required conversions have completed. For example sysmaster and sysadmin will be rebuilt, some installed datablades will be upgraded to newer versions, etc. This will take anywhere from a minute to 15 minutes. If you are making a big version leap and the disk structures of anything have changed (for example index structure changed in early v11.70 releases from older ones) then that will take longer. 

Once things quiet down you can put the engine into production (onmode -m if you started it in administration or single user mode) and start up applications.

That's it. A lot simpler than it sounds. 

Remember, install in a new directory, not overwriting the existing installation. That way you can complete software installation and configuration while the server is online and all you need to do to fall back, if necessary, is to shutdown the new version, change the INFORMIXDIR link back to point at the previous installation, and restart the engine.

Restoring from archive and rolling forward logical logs is a last ditch recovery option as you may not be able to replay logs made by the new release and will only be able to recover up to the point when you shutdown the previous release!

Thank you,can you please provide any links or docs for the upgrading process or configuration process or Backup process if something goes wrong .

Aditya:

The current CSDK release is 4.50.FC10 I believe. V4.50 fixed a handful of very old bugs and added support for some new v14.10 server features. Informix backwards and forwards compatibility is legendary. I have never had any trouble either running applications compiled with older SDK versions (up to a point) against later engine releases, nor with running applications compiled with the latest SDK running against older engine releases as long as the apps were either compiled STATIC or their runtime environment points to the libraries from the SDK release that compiled them.

Obviously due diligence demands that you test that for your specific environment, but it should be a smooth upgrade.

Art

hi team currently we are using SQL Server Management  12 and Informix Client version 4.10 and Java 6 so ,To Remove the Vulnerabilities and to upgrade the Informix to higher version and know the Compatibility for the higher version to which it has to be updated , could some one help on this . 

Oops, that was an engine upgrade. You were asking about a CSDK upgrade. Basically similar except that there is no reason to change ONCONFIG etc. and you can use the INFORMIXSQLHOSTS environment variable to point to the existing sqlhosts file. Create and install in a new directory (so you can have access to the original CSDK version if things do not work out). Install. Set INFORMIXDIR to the new CSDK installtion and go. There is not backup required and the backout strategy is to just set INFORMIXDIR back to the original CSDK installation.

Art

Aditya:

Upgrade process:

• Take a level 0 archive for safety and make sure that the logical logs are being backed up (In 43 years upgrading Informix I've never needed to restore, but us DBAs are a paranoid bunch!)
• If you have made any changes in the sysadmin database (such as disabling task in the ph_task table or adding or changing the effective values in the ph_threshold) then unload those tables so that you can reapply the changes in the new installation as sysadmin is dropped and recreated during the upgrade.
• Create a new directory for the new software along side of the existing $INFORMIXDIR, Name it after the version so something like /opt/informix/ifx_14.10.FC10W1 or whatever. You should be using a symbolic link for the actual path in INFORMIXDIR, so later you will be moving that link to point to the new installation. The directory should be owned by informix and group informix with privileges of 755 (rwxr-xr-x).
• As 'root' (or administrator in Windows) set INFORMIXDIR temporarily to the new install directory path.
• Run the installer for the package and (for v14.10) the license installer for you licensed Edition.
• Copy the ONCONFIG file from the existing INFORMIXDIR/etc into the new $INFORMIXDIR/etc.
• If the sqlhosts file lives in $INFORMIXDIR/etc then copy this file as well. If you are using the INFORMIXSQLHOSTS environment variable to locate the sqlhosts file somewhere other than $INFORMIXDIR/etc (best practice is to place it in the parent of INFORMIXDIR using that env variable) then you don't have to copy the file, it can stay where it is.
• Compare the $ONCONFIG file to the default file $INFORMIXDIR/etc/onconfig.std to see if there are any new parameters or changes in configuration of some existing parameters and make any needed changes. 
• If you have made any changes to the script that the ALARMPROGRAM parameter in the ONCONFIG file points to, you will want to either copy your modified script to the new installation or make the same changes to the corresponding script in the new install.
• If you have installed any custom datablades in $INFORMIXDIR/extend then you will need to copy them into the new INFORMIXDIR from the old one. Some, if built in "C", may need to be recompiled, relinked and the new library installed instead of copying the old one.
• Before you start the new software to perform the upgrade, you are STRONGLY encouraged to complete any outstanding in-place alters. You can use the SQL API function "update_ipa" to do that. See the Administrator's Reference manual or the online manuals for details. Doing this is not strictly needed for the upgrade, however, if you have to revert to the original release version they will have to be completed at that time which will delay the reversion. So let's get that out-of-the-way now.

You are now ready to upgrade whenever you have time for a scheduled outage. The upgrade is as simple as:

1. As user informix:
2. Force a checkpoint (onmode -c).
3. Force a change to the next logical log (onmode -l) and make sure that the log has been backed up.
4. Shutdown the existing engine.
5. Relink the INFORMIXDIR symbolic link to point to the new installation (or if you weren't using a link before, rename the old INFORMIXDIR directory and create a symbolic link with the same path that is being used for INFORMIXDIR pointing at the new installation. (This makes upgrades much simpler since you do not have to change any scripts that set up the environment for you.)
6. Made sure that the "oninit" executable that your session can see is the new one with:
   oninit -V and verify the release and Edition from the output.
7. Start the engine using whatever startup scripts you were using before or:
   oninit -vw. If there is a risk of users connecting before the upgrade completes then start the engine in administration mode (onmode -j -vw) so only user informix can connect or single user mode (oninit -s -vw) so no one can connect.
8. Take a level 0 archive.

That's it. Just wait, monitoring the message log (onmode -m or "tail -f" the message file) until messages show that any required conversions have completed. For example sysmaster and sysadmin will be rebuilt, some installed datablades will be upgraded to newer versions, etc. This will take anywhere from a minute to 15 minutes. If you are making a big version leap and the disk structures of anything have changed (for example index structure changed in early v11.70 releases from older ones) then that will take longer. 

Once things quiet down you can put the engine into production (onmode -m if you started it in administration or single user mode) and start up applications.

That's it. A lot simpler than it sounds. 

Remember, install in a new directory, not overwriting the existing installation. That way you can complete software installation and configuration while the server is online and all you need to do to fall back, if necessary, is to shutdown the new version, change the INFORMIXDIR link back to point at the previous installation, and restart the engine.

Restoring from archive and rolling forward logical logs is a last ditch recovery option as you may not be able to replay logs made by the new release and will only be able to recover up to the point when you shutdown the previous release!

Thank you,can you please provide any links or docs for the upgrading process or configuration process or Backup process if something goes wrong .

Aditya:

The current CSDK release is 4.50.FC10 I believe. V4.50 fixed a handful of very old bugs and added support for some new v14.10 server features. Informix backwards and forwards compatibility is legendary. I have never had any trouble either running applications compiled with older SDK versions (up to a point) against later engine releases, nor with running applications compiled with the latest SDK running against older engine releases as long as the apps were either compiled STATIC or their runtime environment points to the libraries from the SDK release that compiled them.

Obviously due diligence demands that you test that for your specific environment, but it should be a smooth upgrade.

Art

hi team currently we are using SQL Server Management  12 and Informix Client version 4.10 and Java 6 so ,To Remove the Vulnerabilities and to upgrade the Informix to higher version and know the Compatibility for the higher version to which it has to be updated , could some one help on this . 

Aditya:

Upgrade process:

• Take a level 0 archive for safety and make sure that the logical logs are being backed up (In 43 years upgrading Informix I've never needed to restore, but us DBAs are a paranoid bunch!)
• If you have made any changes in the sysadmin database (such as disabling task in the ph_task table or adding or changing the effective values in the ph_threshold) then unload those tables so that you can reapply the changes in the new installation as sysadmin is dropped and recreated during the upgrade.
• Create a new directory for the new software along side of the existing $INFORMIXDIR, Name it after the version so something like /opt/informix/ifx_14.10.FC10W1 or whatever. You should be using a symbolic link for the actual path in INFORMIXDIR, so later you will be moving that link to point to the new installation. The directory should be owned by informix and group informix with privileges of 755 (rwxr-xr-x).
• As 'root' (or administrator in Windows) set INFORMIXDIR temporarily to the new install directory path.
• Run the installer for the package and (for v14.10) the license installer for you licensed Edition.
• Copy the ONCONFIG file from the existing INFORMIXDIR/etc into the new $INFORMIXDIR/etc.
• If the sqlhosts file lives in $INFORMIXDIR/etc then copy this file as well. If you are using the INFORMIXSQLHOSTS environment variable to locate the sqlhosts file somewhere other than $INFORMIXDIR/etc (best practice is to place it in the parent of INFORMIXDIR using that env variable) then you don't have to copy the file, it can stay where it is.
• Compare the $ONCONFIG file to the default file $INFORMIXDIR/etc/onconfig.std to see if there are any new parameters or changes in configuration of some existing parameters and make any needed changes. 
• If you have made any changes to the script that the ALARMPROGRAM parameter in the ONCONFIG file points to, you will want to either copy your modified script to the new installation or make the same changes to the corresponding script in the new install.
• If you have installed any custom datablades in $INFORMIXDIR/extend then you will need to copy them into the new INFORMIXDIR from the old one. Some, if built in "C", may need to be recompiled, relinked and the new library installed instead of copying the old one.
• Before you start the new software to perform the upgrade, you are STRONGLY encouraged to complete any outstanding in-place alters. You can use the SQL API function "update_ipa" to do that. See the Administrator's Reference manual or the online manuals for details. Doing this is not strictly needed for the upgrade, however, if you have to revert to the original release version they will have to be completed at that time which will delay the reversion. So let's get that out-of-the-way now.

You are now ready to upgrade whenever you have time for a scheduled outage. The upgrade is as simple as:

1. As user informix:
2. Force a checkpoint (onmode -c).
3. Force a change to the next logical log (onmode -l) and make sure that the log has been backed up.
4. Shutdown the existing engine.
5. Relink the INFORMIXDIR symbolic link to point to the new installation (or if you weren't using a link before, rename the old INFORMIXDIR directory and create a symbolic link with the same path that is being used for INFORMIXDIR pointing at the new installation. (This makes upgrades much simpler since you do not have to change any scripts that set up the environment for you.)
6. Made sure that the "oninit" executable that your session can see is the new one with:
   oninit -V and verify the release and Edition from the output.
7. Start the engine using whatever startup scripts you were using before or:
   oninit -vw. If there is a risk of users connecting before the upgrade completes then start the engine in administration mode (onmode -j -vw) so only user informix can connect or single user mode (oninit -s -vw) so no one can connect.
8. Take a level 0 archive.

That's it. Just wait, monitoring the message log (onmode -m or "tail -f" the message file) until messages show that any required conversions have completed. For example sysmaster and sysadmin will be rebuilt, some installed datablades will be upgraded to newer versions, etc. This will take anywhere from a minute to 15 minutes. If you are making a big version leap and the disk structures of anything have changed (for example index structure changed in early v11.70 releases from older ones) then that will take longer. 

Once things quiet down you can put the engine into production (onmode -m if you started it in administration or single user mode) and start up applications.

That's it. A lot simpler than it sounds. 

Remember, install in a new directory, not overwriting the existing installation. That way you can complete software installation and configuration while the server is online and all you need to do to fall back, if necessary, is to shutdown the new version, change the INFORMIXDIR link back to point at the previous installation, and restart the engine.

Restoring from archive and rolling forward logical logs is a last ditch recovery option as you may not be able to replay logs made by the new release and will only be able to recover up to the point when you shutdown the previous release!

Thank you,can you please provide any links or docs for the upgrading process or configuration process or Backup process if something goes wrong .

Aditya:

The current CSDK release is 4.50.FC10 I believe. V4.50 fixed a handful of very old bugs and added support for some new v14.10 server features. Informix backwards and forwards compatibility is legendary. I have never had any trouble either running applications compiled with older SDK versions (up to a point) against later engine releases, nor with running applications compiled with the latest SDK running against older engine releases as long as the apps were either compiled STATIC or their runtime environment points to the libraries from the SDK release that compiled them.

Obviously due diligence demands that you test that for your specific environment, but it should be a smooth upgrade.

Art

hi team currently we are using SQL Server Management  12 and Informix Client version 4.10 and Java 6 so ,To Remove the Vulnerabilities and to upgrade the Informix to higher version and know the Compatibility for the higher version to which it has to be updated , could some one help on this .