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Embedding Informix®
When you embed HCL Informix®, you can use enterprise-class high-availability and high performance with embeddability features such as easy programmability, a small disk and memory footprint, and silent deployment.
Embedding HCL Informix®
The Informix® Embeddability Guide describes how to embed HCL Informix in your applications.
Deploying Informix® software
The product supports embeddability tools that enable lightweight, faster deployment of the database server and related client programs.
The deployment utility
The Informix® deployment utility can deploy snapshots of pre-configured HCL Informix instances (with or without data) on one or more computers.

Embedding Informix®
When you embed HCL Informix®, you can use enterprise-class high-availability and high performance with embeddability features such as easy programmability, a small disk and memory footprint, and silent deployment.
- Embedding HCL Informix®
  The Informix® Embeddability Guide describes how to embed HCL Informix in your applications.
  - Overview of embedding Informix® products
    You can embed Informix® products in your applications by taking advantage of customizable deployment options and configurable administration features. You can use the embeddability features in combination with other product features for installation footprint reduction and high-availability clustering to achieve a quicker and easier end-to-end deployment solution.
  - Deploying Informix® software
    The product supports embeddability tools that enable lightweight, faster deployment of the database server and related client programs.
    - The deployment utility
      The Informix® deployment utility can deploy snapshots of pre-configured HCL Informix instances (with or without data) on one or more computers.
      - Planning for deploying Informix®
        Before you deploy Informix®, you should decide what you want to include in your deployment and how to configure the target server.
      - Creating a snapshot with the deployment assistant
        Use the deployment assistant to create a snapshot of a running Informix® database server instance without shutting it down. You can reduce the snapshot footprint by selecting which features in the template instance to omit. You can include or exclude associated data spaces.
      - Creating a snapshot for deployment manually
        Create a snapshot of HCL Informix® that you can use with the deployment utility to place pre-configured instances on multiple computers.
      - Deploying a snapshot with the deployment utility
        Deploy a snapshot of an instance by using the ifxdeploy utility on the target computer.
      - The ifxdeploy command: The deployment utility
        Use the ifxdeploy command to deploy a snapshot or remove a snapshot that you already deployed.
    - The syncsqlhosts utility
      Use the syncsqlhosts utility to manually convert the connection information between the sqlhosts file format and the Windows™ registry format.
    - Removing a snapshot with the deployment utility
      Use the deployment utility to remove a snapshot that was originally deployed by the deployment utility. In addition, you can use this utility to remove the user who owns the installation from the operating system.
    - Deploying Informix® and client products with RPM-based installation (Linux™)
      You can create RedHat Package Manager (RPM) images of a customized HCL Informix® product installation to deploy the products with a silent installation. You can use RPM images to deploy the database server and client products in embedded applications. After you install the database server with an RPM image, you must manually initialize the database server.
  - Informix® embeddability deployment tutorial
    The purpose of this tutorial is to provide steps and scripts needed for silent end-to-end deployment of HCL Informix® on Linux™ and Windows™ using the deployment assistant and the deployment utility.
  - Manage memory in embedded environments
    You can manage memory in embedded environments by enabling the database server to automatically rotate and delete online message log files, configuring the actions that the server takes to continue processing when memory is critically low, and enabling the server to reserve a specific amount of memory for use when critical rollback activities are needed and the server has limited free memory.

The deployment utility

The Informix® deployment utility can deploy snapshots of pre-configured HCL Informix® instances (with or without data) on one or more computers.

A snapshot is an image of the Informix® database server that includes the installation directory, configuration settings, and any data spaces associated with the instance. The installation can be a working instance, or an installation that you set up as a template from which to deploy the instance on other computers. You can use the deployment assistant to customization of the snapshot.

Deploying a snapshot is quicker than installing Informix® with the silent installation option. When you deploye a snapshot on a computer, you can replace the snapshot or remove it by using the deployment utility.

The following list describes some scenarios for which the deployment utility can be useful:

You want to deploy a particular database server configuration on multiple computers. You can tune only one instance as the template instance, and then use the utility to deploy it on to other computers in silent mode.
You want to clone an instance on the same computer or set up multiple instances quickly.
You want to upgrade multiple instances to a different fix pack or version level to take advantage of newer product enhancements but this requires tuning certain configuration parameters or environment variables. You can tune the template instance, and then use the utility to upgrade other instances rapidly.
You are embedding the Informix® application on multiple computers and want to reduce application installation and setup time. You can specify the installation location and a single path for all application files including the database server files during deployment to avoid waiting for data loading and database server initialization.

Note: The deployment assistant ifxdeployassist (DA) is not supported starting Informix Server version 14.10.xC7 and is no longer included with the product.