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Administering
In addition to administering the database server, you can tune performance, replicate data, and archive data.
Enterprise Replication
The HCL® Informix® Enterprise Replication Guide describes the concepts of data replication using Informix Enterprise Replication, including how to design your replication system, as well as administer and manage data replication throughout your enterprise.
Setting up and managing Enterprise Replication
After you design your replication system, you define it and start replication.
Preparing the Replication Environment
The following topics explain the steps that are required for setting up Enterprise Replication.
Preparing the Database Server Environment
To prepare the database server environment, set database server environment variables and configuration parameters, and synchronize the operating system time on all participating database servers.
Setting Database Server Environment Variables
Certain environment variables must be set in a replication environment.

Administering
In addition to administering the database server, you can tune performance, replicate data, and archive data.
- System administration
  These topics contain concepts, procedures, and reference information for database and database server administrators to use for managing and tuning HCL Informix® database servers.
- Backup and Restore Guide
  The Informix® Backup and Restore Guide describes how to use the Informix ON-Bar and ontape utilities to back up and restore database server data. These utilities enable you to recover your databases after data is lost or becomes corrupted due to hardware or software failure or accident.
- Enterprise Replication
  The HCL® Informix® Enterprise Replication Guide describes the concepts of data replication using Informix Enterprise Replication, including how to design your replication system, as well as administer and manage data replication throughout your enterprise.
  - About Enterprise Replication
    Informix® Enterprise Replication generates and manages multiple copies of data at one or more sites, which allows an enterprise to share corporate data throughout its organization.
  - Planning and designing for Enterprise Replication
    Before you set up your replication system, plan how to include Enterprise Replication into your database server environment, design your database schema by following Enterprise Replication requirements, and then design your replication system between database servers.
  - Setting up and managing Enterprise Replication
    After you design your replication system, you define it and start replication.
    - Preparing the Replication Environment
      The following topics explain the steps that are required for setting up Enterprise Replication.
      - Preparing the Network Environment
        You must prepare the network environment for each database server in an Enterprise Replication domain.
      - Preparing the Disk
        These topics describe how to prepare your disk for Enterprise Replication.
      - Preparing the Database Server Environment
        To prepare the database server environment, set database server environment variables and configuration parameters, and synchronize the operating system time on all participating database servers.
        Setting Database Server Environment Variables
        Certain environment variables must be set in a replication environment.
        Set configuration parameters for replication
        You must set certain configuration parameters before you start Enterprise Replication. You can set other configuration parameters to customize the behavior of Enterprise Replication.
        Time Synchronization
        Whenever you use replication that requires time stamp, time stamp with a stored procedure, or delete wins conflict resolution, you must synchronize the operating system times of the database servers that participate in the replicate.
      - Preparing Data for Replication
      - Load and unload data
        You can load data into or unload data out of tables in your replication environment in various ways, depending on your circumstances.
      - Data Preparation Example
    - Using High-Availability Clusters with Enterprise Replication
    - Defining Replication Servers, Replicates, Participants, and Replicate Sets
      These topics describe the steps defining and starting Enterprise Replication.
    - Grid setup and management
      A grid is a set of replication servers that are configured to simplify administration. When you run SQL data definition statements from within a grid context on a grid server, the statements propagate to all servers in the grid. You can run SQL data manipulation statements and routines through grid routines. You can choose to set up replication automatically when you create a table through a grid. You can propagate external files to other servers in the grid.
    - Shard cluster setup
      Sharding is a way to horizontally partition a single table across multiple database servers in a shard cluster. Enterprise Replication moves the data from the source server to the appropriate target server as specified by the sharding method. You query a sharded table as if the entire table is on the local server. You do not need to know where the data is. Queries that are performed on one shard server retrieve the relevant data from other servers in a shard cluster. Sharding reduces the index size on each shard server and distributes performance across hardware. You can add shard servers to the shard cluster as your data grows.
    - Managing Replication Servers and Replicates
    - Monitor and troubleshooting Enterprise Replication
      You can monitor and diagnose problems with the Enterprise Replication system by using several different methods, depending on your needs.
  - Push data feature
  - Loopback replication
  - Appendixes

Setting Database Server Environment Variables

Certain environment variables must be set in a replication environment.

About this task

To configure the database server environment, verify that the following environment variables are set correctly:

INFORMIXDIR is set to the full path of the Informix® directory.
INFORMIXSERVER is set to the name of the default database server.
INFORMIXSQLHOSTS is set to the full path to the SQLHOSTS file.
DELIMIDENT is not set or set to n. Enterprise Replication does not allow delimited identifiers.