Informix on Campus - back online

I am happy to announce that the migration of the Informix on Campus wiki is complete and the site is back online! The URL has changed and so please update your bookmarks - https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/connect/informixoncampus. In a week or two, all the major search engines should have this wiki indexed.

If you are wondering what has changed within the wiki... not much really. The content is still the same. I have added a few topics that were missing before, in the lecture series for Informix in a Box. However, the new wiki is much more social! You can leave feedback, email, subscribe, Facebook, Twitter, etc. directly from any wiki page. Internally, organizing the wiki pages is a bit easier for us.

Do you think we can add something relevant to this wiki? Or see a topic missing? Are you interested in contributing to the contents of the Informix on Campus wiki? Contact us and let us know. (Send email to: idsoncampus at us.ibm.com)

Service Interruption

For many members of the Informix community, this is the busiest and the fun part of the year! Yes, I am referring to our annual IIUG Conference about to open on Sunday, April 21st in San Diego, California. I hope to see many familiar and new faces at the conference this year.

In your busy schedule, if you have not visited the Informix on Campus wiki hosted on the IBM developerWorks domain recently (within the last one week) it is completely understandable. For anyone who might have tried to visit the site, to your complete astonishment you would have noticed that the site has disappeared without any warning. This happened mainly due to the change in the underlying application being used by developWorks. However, due to various reasons some of us were blindsided by this change. Do not despair, this is not the end!

Fortunately, we have a complete back up of the old wiki and we have not lost any data. However, it is going to take me some time to migrate the contents to the new format. By the end of this month (after the IIUG conference), we should have a brand new home with all the great Informix education material. I will post another update once the migration is completed. I apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your understanding.

Simply Powerful

If you are wondering why there has not been any new post in this blog for a long time, I have a very good excuse! We have been working hard to bring you the newest version of Informix. This latest version, code named Centaurus, is faster, smarter, and easier to use. I can already feel your next questions - When is it coming out? What is new in it?

We have a special webcast scheduled for March 26th, 2013 @ 1PM ET, where Jerry Keesee (Worldwide Director of Informix Development) and John Miller (Lead Architect, IBM Informix) will talk about what this newest release has in store for you. Don't miss out, register for the webcast right now - click here to register. Open your calendar and save this event.

Many of our fans who participated in the Early Validation Program (beta), have given us great feedback. Here is a recent blog post from one of our participants.

You can't wait for the webcast? Well... here's a 'teaser' video.

Informix on Campus at IIUG 2012 Conference

Last week I had the pleasure to be a part of IIUG 2012 conference in (almost) sunny San Diego. The wonderful organizers of the conference did it again! In fact they outdid themselves in several ways. With a sold out hotel, a record number of sessions, and an increased number of users as well as total attendees, it was a great atmosphere. You can read more about the conference in the current edition of IIUG Insider newsletter (Issue #142).


The conference organizers once again welcomed IBM to invite and host faculty members from the regional universities on April 24th, the second day of the conference. We had two faculty members  from two universities at the conference: California State University at Long Beach, and University of Redlands. In addition, we had a representative who is also an Informix user from The University of Iowa. The faculty members were given a one day pass to the conference which included an invitation to Tuesday's keynote, conference sessions, demos, and a round table discussion with the IBM Informix and the IIUG leaders. At the round table, the attendees learnt about the latest Informix technologies, the role of Informix in the database market, and its role in the IBM Smarter Planet initiative.


This year another great thing happened on the academic front. For the first time, the IIUG Directors Award was bestowed upon a faculty member. Dr. Mirta Baranovic from the University of Zagreb, who has been teaching Informix to her students since the 1980s, won the IIUG Directors Award for 2012. You can read more about her passion and contributions to the Informix community here.


All the faculty members that attended the conference and the round table session found it very valuable and are looking forward to collaborating with IBM this Summer/Fall. A big thanks to everyone at IBM and IIUG who made this event a grand success!!

Informix was at CCSC Central Plains Conference

Hello everyone! It's been a while since we had any significant updates. It may appear like Informix on Campus activities pick up during the first half of every year and then slow down during the latter. The truth is that our efforts during the second half of the year usually sets up the stage for our activities during the first half.


On March 30th and 31st, representing IBM Informix, I attended the 18th annual Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges (CCSC) Central Plains conference. It was held at the Ozarks Technical Community College in Springfield, MO. There were about 150 participants including students and faculty. Most of the faculty were from universities in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Arkansas, and Nebraska. However there were a few from as far away as California, Lousiana, and Michigan.


At the conference, Informix participated as a vendor and I was given an one hour session to present what we have to offer. About half the audience were faculty who were primarily focused on teaching and the rest were students. Below is a glimpse of the room starting to fill up well before the session.

I presented the session titled "IBM Informix TimeSeries Revolution". True to the title, I spent the majority of the time talking about Informix TimeSeries, how it is uniquely positioned in the market, and why the faculty and students should start adopting it. The attendees were impressed with the technology. In addition,  I talked about IBM academic initiative and how faculty can take advantage of the Informix in a Box program. The attendees also received a DVD that contains the Informix lecture series and the Virtual Appliance. During the conference, I also had the opportunity to talk to several faculty members and tell them about Informix and our campus activities across many universities.


IIUG2012 conference is only two weeks away! Hope to see a lot of the Informix community in San Diego. If you want to get involved or have any questions about "Informix on Campus" activities, contact us at idsoncampus at us.ibm.com

Faculty from regional universities at IIUG 2011 conference.

I know this is quite a late post! But hey, it is "better late than never", right?

The wonderful organizers of IIUG 2011 conference allowed IBM to invite and host faculty members from the regional universities on May 16th, the first day of the conference. We had a good response from the major universities in this area. Six faculty members from five university campuses were at the conference: University of Missouri-Kansas City, University of Kansas (Lawrence campus), University of Kansas (Edwards campus), Kansas State University, and Northwest Missouri State University. The faculty members were given a one day pass to the conference which included an invitation to Monday's keynote, conference sessions, demos, a round table discussion with the IBM Informix team, lunch, and dinner. They also had an opportunity to meet with the keynote speaker Dr. David Ferrucci and discuss topics related to education and research in academia.

Dr. Ferrucci (second from left) with some of the faculty members

Following lunch, the faculty members participated in a round table discussion with the IBM Informix team. They were presented with an overview of Informix architecture, Informix usage in the database market, and its role in the IBM Smarter Planet initiative. They also learnt about what IBM has to offer to the academic community and how they can partner with IBM in producing a skilled workforce.

Prof. Praveen Rao from University of Missouri-Kansas City also presented a conference session in which he shared his experience collaborating with the IBM Informix team and the usage of Informix in his classes. He has been offering courses for the past two semesters that use Informix in the IBM Development and Test cloud as well as the Informix Virtual Appliance.

IIUG 2011 conference turned out to be an great event for the Informix on Campus initiative. All the faculty members that attended found it very valuable and are looking forward to collaborating with IBM this Fall. A big thanks to everyone at IBM and IIUG who made this event a great success!!

Informix on Campus in Brazil

Last week, from 05/30/2011 to 06/03/2011, was performed in Campo Grande, MS, Brazil, the first Informix course via IBM On Campus project, named Introduction to Informix.

Students, and Alexandre Marini / Miguel Carbone

The event was realized on SGI - Superintendência de Gestão da Informação - from SEFAZ-MS, with 24 students participating, together with UFMS - Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul, one of our local Universities.

Course topics covered the following subjects:

a. OPPENING ON ACADEMIC PROJECT (INFORMIX ON CAMPUS)
b. INTRODUCTION TO INFORMIX
c. VIRTUALIZATION AND INFORMIX
d. INFORMIX ARCHITECTURE
e. DATABASE OBJECTS, DESIGN DATABASE, SQL
f. TRIGGERS / STORED PROCEDURES LANGUAGE
g. INDEXING
h. CONCORRENCY AND LOCKING

Despite our few machines limitation (in lab) to the course, general avaliation was extremely good, since students that would never heard about Informix, considered it a good choice to their database studies area, as one more technology to be aplied on labor market, with several case studies presented in classes, including great companies and industrial utilizations around the world, in their several sectors, and also market comparisons.

Mr Alexandre Marini thought the students, with a great help from Mr Miguel Carbone (thanks a lot, Miguel)!

Mr Alexandre Marini
Mr Miguel Carbone

We appreciate every student participation, and we´d like to congratulate: Mr Pradeep Natarajan, Mss Veronica Gomes (they really helped in every possible ways - time was short), and also send special thanks to Vanessa (Alexandre Marini´s wife), who kindly made some cakes to the students celebrate the last day.

The cakes - students really loved it!
Students on coffee-break. Thanks, Vanessa!

(Some course pictures are also available in our BRIUG community on Facebook! Check it out...)

We hope this is the first Brazilian course, from many others that will come. It´s always a great opportunity to spread our excellent product to students who will be working in a couple of years on our local markets.

Best regards!

Informix Visits Dallas

Hi again! A year ago, I traveled to the SIGCSE '10 conference in Milwaukee, WI to distribute information on our "Informix in a Box" program at the IBM Academic Initiative booth (read here) .

SIGCSE, which stands for "Special Interest Group in Computer Science Education", hosted another conference in Dallas on March 9-12. IBM was still its Gold level sponsor as last year. Again, Informix made a presence by distributing materials on the "Informix in a Box" program at the IBM Academic Initiative booth. This conference is very well visited with teachers from all over the world.

IBM also presented a session on "Can Students Really Develop Software Collaboratively" which talked about using Rational Team Concert (RTC), a collaborative tool aiding the teams to develop software together.

After visiting Milwaukee last year, Informix visited two colleges as a result of that. Let's hope Informix will visit more colleges as the result of the SIGCSE '11 conference in Dallas!

Informix in a Box at Budapest, Hungary (round 2)

Earlier this year (February 1-3, 2011), Informix training was offered to university students in Budapest, Hungary. You can read all about it in this original posting on The Informix Zone.

http://informix-zone.com/informix-taught-budapest-university

Following the success of that session, another one was conducted last week (April 5, 2011). About 20 participants from more than 6 universities, including students and faculty members attended the session. The universities that participated include: Kecskemét College, Kodolányi János University of Applied Sciences, Budapesti Corvinus Egyetem, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, and Óbudai University.

New Informix courses available via Academic Initiative Website!

The Academic Initiative website now offers new Informix courses, available in introductory, intermediate, and advanced levels!

https://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/devtool/scholar/web/coursewarePickPage.do?source=ai-course-dim

Skill Level: Introductory
Informix Structured Query Language V 11.5 (IX130)
Informix Stored Procedures and Triggers V 11.5 (IX711)

Skill Level: Intermediate
Informix Dynamic Server 11 Database Administration: Managing and Optimizing Data V 11 (IX221)
Informix Dynamic Server 11 System Administration (IX811)

Skill Level: Advanced
Informix Dynamic Server 11 Performance Tuning (IX401)
Informix Dynamic Server 11 Internal Architecture (IX911)
Informix Dynamic Server 11 Replication (IX421)

Informix in a Box at UPTC, Colombia

The tour continues!!! Informix on Campus visited Pedagogic and Technological University of Colombia (UPTC) in Tunja, Colombia. Packed with students, professors and faculty deans, the delivery of a two-day Informix in a Box by Gustavo Castro, Engineer from our Informix High Availability Development team, was a success. Gustavo enchanted them with historical information about database technology, comparison of vendors designs and technical details of a couple of our patented mechanisms. All these, additional to his task in hand of  introducing Informix fundamentals to the 31  participants in the room hungry of knowledge.

UPTC will host the V National and I International Conference in Research in Computers and  Information Technology in October 6-8 and IBM has been invited to present our Informix Spatial technology to 300 participants. More information about the event at http://www.eisiuptc.org

Patricia Rubio introducing the Initiative to the audience

Gustavo showing the content of $INFORMIXDIR/bin

Graduation time

Visit UPTC at www.uptc.edu.co

Universidad Juan de Castellanos receives Informix on Campus

Located in Tunja (Boyacá), at 122 kilometers from Bogotá, Juan de Castellanos hosted an Informix in a Box, with the attendance of 25 students and 3 professors. The workshop was delivered on September, 2010 by Gustavo Castro, Engineer from the Informix Development High Availability team at IBM. Professors and students enjoyed learning and doing the exercises while Gustavo enjoyed their hospitality, learned about Villa de Leiva's history, an old town close by, founded in 1572 that keeps the architecture of the colonial times intact and it's surrounded by the most beautiful natural landscape.

Thank you Juan de Castellanos for a wonderful time at your Campus!! Visit them at http://www.jdc.edu.co

Professors and studeinpaying attention to Gustavos presentation

The Faculty Dean by the door

 

 

Informix on Campus visited Politécnico Grancolombiano in Bogotá, Colombia

Informix on Campus visited Politécnico Grancolombiano in Bogotá, Colombia back in June, 2010. We provided a ten-hour workshop on introduction to Informix. Frank Arias one of our Informix Advanced Support Engineers at IBM Software Group was the instructor and took the students and professors attending the training through Informix Fundamentals and features and helped them understand the concepts through practical exercises and examples.

In August 17th the school hosted an IBM day to give students and Faculty members the opportunity to learn about the technology that IBM offers and how it's being used. That day we inaugurated the Informix Room and Ivan Rojas, Sales Help Manager, presented a technical chat about our Informix Enterprise Replication feature.

Politécnico Grancolombiano signed the IBM Academic Initiative Agreement and has started to explore the IBM portfolio. Informix is already installed and ready to play with it ,in the Informix Room, and will be an alternative for students to develop their projects on as soon as this semester.

Join me to welcome "El Poli", their students and faculty members to Informix on Campus. Visit them at http://www.poligran.edu.co/

Profiling Young Professionals

There is a new link added to the Community Section on the right, titled "Information Management Academic Community Updates".

Do check it out for the latest updates! They have started doing "Profiling Young Professionals" on July 16, 2010. Nick Geib is the first one to be profiled - he works at IBM as a software developer for Informix. He has so much to say about Informix and how it has made him successful in his career.

Read about Nick Geib here!

IBM Informix at Mobile Data Management conference in Kansas City

IBM Informix academic initiative program is one of the sponsors for Mobile Data Mgmt 2010 conference being held in Kansas City.

At the conference we had an opportunity to present to over a dozen members of academia and industry. We talked about IBM cloud offerings, IBM academic initiative along with various IBM solutions for mobile platforms. We also presented the Informix in Box program to the academic community. We showed them how to access various resources such as training materials, software and more from IBM academic initiative website. We also had opportunity to talk to several faculty members and tell them about Informix in Box program. See the conference page above for abstract of our talk.

Rochester Institute of Technology gets a visit

Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) welcomed Informix as Mark Ashworth and Pamela Siebert gave another three-hour workshop to its surprising mix of students - spanning from many departments in computing: Information Technology, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Networking Security, and Applied Computing. Not only that but there were also a mix of both deaf and hearing students. RIT is well known for its superior support and program for the deaf and hard of hearing students.

RIT Informix on Campus coordinator Mark Wambach poses with Pamela Siebert. Mark was her tutor when she was a student at RIT back then!



There were over thirty students and faculty members in attendance, and we introduced Informix to them, talking about its architecture, features, and most especially on blades. Hands on labs were provided on both the introduction and the blades.

We also talked about OpenAdminTool, a PHP-based Web browser administration tool for managing one or more Informix Dynamic Servers. It allows the users to monitor and administrate their IDS instances from a single location - especially from the mobile phone.

The session was very well-received and everyone especially enjoyed the pizza, t-shirts, dvds, and certificate of completion.

Please contact us at idsoncampus at us.ibm.com if you are interested in us visiting your college!

Visit at St. John Fisher College

Informix on Campus visited St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York back in April. We provided a three-hour workshop on introduction to Informix and talked about blades. Mark Ashworth, our Informix Extensibility Architect showed enthusiasm when presenting on blades. Pamela Siebert, a software test engineer, introduced Informix and talked about the demos.

The Grid Slicer demo was introduced to show some of the strengths of Informix. This demo allows users to extract 2D slices from a 3D gridded 1.6GB sample from a male dataset of the Visible Human project of the US National Library of Medicine.

We also talked about how Informix is part of the soccer game - it helps IMPIRE to generate and feed soccer statistics for the major German TV broadcasting, real-time.



The hands-on lab activity was also conducted to get the students familiar with Informix.

Overall, it was a success and Informix presence was made known to the Computer Science Department.

St John Fisher college

The next Informix in a Box seminar will be held at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York.

Affiliation:
St. John Fisher College
Computer Science Program

Date/Time:
Wednesday, April 7^th 2010 from 10:00am – 1:00pm

Location:
Pioch 108 (also known as the “Security Lab”)

We will be providing an introductory Informix workshop including hands-on lab activities.

Comment here or email us if you are interested for your college or if you want to join in!

First conference in France based on the INFORMIX ON CAMPUS program

I m pleased to share with all of you my first feedback on our first Conference based on INFORMIX ON CAMPUS in a french school called EISTI.
I spent three hours to explain OAT, indexes and the job of DBA to approximatly 50 students.
If any of you heard one need coming from French University/ Schools, I will be glad to help.

In details, I did :
1)Explanations on the INFORMIX ON CAMPUS program,
2)Open Admin Tool : what is it, screen shots, usage for a DBA,
3)Indexes : what is IDS specific (based on the PPT of the program)
4)Feedbacks on tuning reports
5)DBA : role, fun and easy with IDS (not too, just a little bit)

I only had one session from students. What is the % size on the market place of DBMS ?
I won't share my answer in this Blog.

Informix makes a presence in Milwaukee

Hello! I attended the SIGCSE '10 conference in Milwaukee on March 9 - 13. SIGCSE is geared toward education in computer science.

IBM was a gold level sponsor there, so IBM had its own booth at the expo! So many teachers came to meet us to learn about IBM Academic Initiative in general, also about our "Informix in a Box" program.

Li-Te Cheng, Jeff Gibbs, Jeff Brody, Sharon McFadden (not pictured), and I shared booth duty.

IBM also held a sponsor session on two topics:

• "Lessons From Teaching Teamwork with Rational Team Concert" (Jean-Michel Lemieux and Tim Klinger)
• "Software for a Cause - A Discussion About Student Projects for Organizations in Need" (Li-Te Cheng)
  

If you are interested for more information on the above topics, feel free to contact us and we will point you to the correct place.

Overall, I think Informix has made a nice presence at the conference booth with many teachers and several students stopping by. Our Informix shirts and DVDs were so hot, we ran out of them in under than 2 hours! All we have left was this:


I hope to start seeing random people wearing Informix on Campus shirts soon :)

Keep an eye out for upcoming college trips!